






































































































THE LAW 
AND THE WORD 


BY 

T. TROWARD * 

Late Divisional Judge, Punjab. Honorary member of 
the Medico-Legal Society of New York. 

First Vice-President International 
New Thought Alliance 

Author of the “Edinburgh Lectures on Mental 
Science,” etc. 


NEW YORK 

ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & COMPANY 
1917 


'■> / 


Copyright, 1917, by 
S. A. Troward 


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Published May, 1917 



M -2 1917 


©GI.A467291 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 


Foreword. 


I 

Some Facts in Nature .... 


II 

Some Psychic Experiences . . . 

. 18 

III 

Man’s Place in the Creative Order 

• 44 

IV 

The Law of Wholeness .... 

• 75 

V 

The Soul of the Subject . . . 

• 85 

VI 

The Promises. 

. 103 

VII 

Death and Immortality . . . 

. 132 

VIII 

Transferring the Burden , . . 

. 168 








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* 




1 I 













FOREWORD 


THOMAS TROWARD 
AN APPRECIATION 

How is one to know a friend? Certainly 
not by the duration of acquaintance. Neither 
can friendship be bought or sold by service 
rendered. Nor can it be coined into acts of 
gallantry or phrases of flattery. It has no 
part in the small change of courtesy. It is 
outside all these, containing them all and su¬ 
perior to them all. 

To some is given the great privilege of a 
day set apart to mark the arrival of a total 
stranger panoplied with all the insignia of 
friendship. He comes unannounced. He 
bears no letter of introduction. No mutual 
friend can vouch for him. Suddenly and si- 
linetly he steps unexpectedly out of the shadow 
of material concern and spiritual obscurity, 
into the radiance of intimate friendship, as a 
picture is projected upon a lighted screen. 
But unlike the phantom picture he is an in- 

in 


IV 


Foreword 


stant reality that one’s whole being immedi¬ 
ately recognizes, and the radiance of fellow¬ 
ship that pervades his word, thought and ac¬ 
tion holds all the essence of long companion¬ 
ship. 

Unfortunately there are too few of these 
bright messengers of God to be met with in 
life’s pilgrimage, but that Judge Troward was 
one of them will never be doubted by the thou¬ 
sands who are now mourning his departure 
from among us. Those whose closest touch 
with him has been the reading of his books 
will mourn him as a friend only less than those 
who listened to him on the platform. For no 
books ever written more clearly expressed the 
author. The same simple lucidity and gen¬ 
tle humanity, the same effort to discard com¬ 
plicated non-essentials, mark both the man and 
his books. 

Although the spirit of benign friendliness 
pervades his writings and illuminated his pub¬ 
lic life, yet much of his capacity for friend¬ 
ship was denied those who were not privileged 
to clasp hands with him and to sit beside him 
in familiar confidence. Only in the intimacy 
of the fireside did he wholly reveal his innate 
modesty and simplicity of character. Here 


Foreword 


v 


alone, glamoured with his radiating friend¬ 
ship, was shown the wealth of his richly- 
stored mind equipped by nature and long 
training to deal logically with the most pro¬ 
found and abstruse questions of life. Here 
indeed was proof of his greatness, his unas¬ 
suming superiority, his humanity, his keen 
sense of honour, his wit and humour, his gen¬ 
erosity and all the characteristics of a rare 
gentleman, a kindly philosopher and a true 
friend. 

To Judge Troward was given the logician’s 
power to strip a subject bare of all super¬ 
fluous and concealing verbiage, and to exhibit 
the gleaming jewels of truth and reality 
in splendid simplicity. This supreme qual¬ 
ity, this ability to make the complex sim¬ 
ple, the power to subordinate the non-essen¬ 
tial, gave to his conversation, to his lectures, 
to his writings, and in no less degree to his 
personality, a direct and charming naivete that 
at once challenged attention and compelled 
confidence and affection. 

His sincerity was beyond question. How¬ 
ever much one might differ from him in opin¬ 
ion, at least one never doubted his profound 
faith and complete devotion to truth. His 


VI 


Foreword 


guileless nature was beyond ungenerous sus¬ 
picions and selfish ambitions. He walked 
calmly upon his way wrapped in the majesty 
of his great thoughts, oblivious to the vexa¬ 
tions of the world’s cynicism. Charity and 
reverence for the indwelling spirit marked all 
his human relations. Tolerance of the opin¬ 
ions of others, benevolence and tenderness 
dwelt in his every word and act. Yet his care¬ 
ful consideration of others did not paralyze 
the strength of his firm will or his power to 
strike hard blows at wrong and error. The 
search for truth, to which his life was de¬ 
voted, was to him a holy quest. That he could 
and would lay a lance in defence of his opin¬ 
ions is evidenced in his writings, and has many 
times been demonstrated to the discomfiture 
of assailing critics. But his urbanity was a 
part of himself and never departed from him. 

Not to destroy but to create was his part in 
the world. In developing his philosophy he 
built upon the foundation of his predecessors. 
No good and true stone to be found among 
the ruins of the past, but was carefully worked 
into his superstructure of modern thought, 
radiant with spirituality, to the building of 
which the enthusiasm of his life was devoted. 


Foreword 


Vll 


To one who has studied Judge Troward, 
and grasped the significance of his theory of 
the “ Universal Sub-conscious Mind,” and 
who also has attained to an appreciation of 
Henri Bergson’s theory of a “ Universal Liv¬ 
ingness,” superior to and outside the material 
Universe, there must appear a distinct correla¬ 
tion of ideas. That intricate and ponderously 
irrefutable argument that Bergson has so pa¬ 
tiently built up by deep scientific research and 
unsurpassed profundity of thought and crys¬ 
tal-clear reason, that leads to the substantial 
conclusion that man has leapt the barrier of 
materiality only by the urge of some external 
pressure superior to himself, but which, by 
reason of infinite effort, he alone of all terres¬ 
trial beings has succeeded in utilizing in a su¬ 
perior manner and to his advantage: this well- 
rounded and exhaustively demonstrated argu¬ 
ment in favour of a super-livingness in the 
universe, which finds its highest terrestrial ex¬ 
pression in man, appears to be the scientific 
demonstration of Judge Troward’s basic prin¬ 
ciple of the “ Universal Sub-conscious Mind.” 
This universal and infinite God-consciousness 
which Judge Troward postulates as man’s 
sub-consciousness, and from which man was 


Foreword 


viii 

created and is maintained, and of which all 
physical, mental and spiritual manifestation is 
a form of expression, appears to be a corollary 
of Bergson’s demonstrated “ Universal Liv¬ 
ingness.” What Bergson has so brilliantly 
proven by patient and exhaustive processes of 
science, Judge Troward arrived at by intuition, 
and postulated as the basis of his argument, 
which he proceeded to develop by deductive 
reasoning. 

The writer was struck by the apparent 
parallelism of these two distinctly dissimilar 
philosophies, and mentioned the discovery to 
Judge Troward who naturally expressed a 
wish to read Bergson, with whose writings he 
was wholly unacquainted. A loan of Berg¬ 
son’s “ Creative Evolution ” produced no 
comment for several weeks, when it was re¬ 
turned with the characteristic remark, “ I’ve 
tried my best to get hold of him, but I don’t 
know what he is talking about.” I mention 
the remark as being characteristic only because 
it indicates his extreme modesty and disre¬ 
gard of exhaustive scientific research. 

The Bergson method of scientific expres¬ 
sion was unintelligible to his mind, trained to 
intuitive reasoning. The very elaborateness 


Foreword 


IX 


and microscopic detail that makes Bergson 
great is opposed to Judge Troward’s method of 
simplicity. He cared not for complexities, and 
the intricate minutiae of the process of crea¬ 
tion, but was only concerned with its motive 
power — the spiritual principles upon which it 
was organized and upon which it proceeds. 

Although the conservator of truth of every 
form and degree wherever found, Judge Tro- 
ward was a ruthless destroyer of sham and 
pretence. To those submissive minds that 
placidly accept everything indiscriminately, and 
also those who prefer to follow along paths of 
well-beaten opinion, because the beaten path is 
popular, to all such he would perhaps appear 
to be an irreverent iconoclast seeking to uproot 
long accepted dogma and to overturn existing 
faiths. Such an opinion of Judge Troward’s 
work could not prevail with any one who has 
studied his teachings. 

His reverence for the fundamental truths of 
religious faith was profound, and every stu¬ 
dent of his writings will testify to the great 
constructive value of his work. He builded 
upon an ancient foundation a new and nobler 
structure of human destiny, solid in its sim¬ 
plicity and beautiful in its innate grandeur. 


X 


Foreword 


But to the wide circle of Judge Troward’s 
friends he will best and most gloriously be re¬ 
membered as a teacher. In his magic mind the 
unfathomable revealed its depths and the illim¬ 
itable its boundaries; metaphysics took on the 
simplicity of the ponderable, and man himself 
occupied a new and more dignified place in 
the Cosmos. Not only did he perceive clearly, 
but he also possessed that quality of mind even 
more rare than deep and clear perception, that 
clarity of expression and exposition that can 
carry another and less-informed mind along 
with it, on the current of its understanding, to 
a logical and comprehended conclusion. 

In his books, his lectures and his personality 
he was always ready to take the student by the 
hand, and in perfect simplicity and friendliness 
to walk and talk with him about the deeper 
mysteries of life — the life that includes death 
— and to shed the brilliant light of his wisdom 
upon the obscure and difficult problems that tor¬ 
ment sincere but rebellious minds. 

His artistic nature found expression in brush 
and canvas and his great love for the sea is 
reflected in many beautiful marine sketches. 
But if painting was his recreation, his work 


Foreword 


xi 


was the pursuit of Truth wherever to be found, 
and in whatever disguise. 

His life has enriched and enlarged the lives 
of many, and all those who knew him will un¬ 
derstand that in helping others he was accom¬ 
plishing exactly what he most desired. 
Knowledge, to him, was worth only what it 
yielded in uplifting humanity to a higher 
spiritual appreciation, and to a deeper under¬ 
standing of God’s purpose and man’s destiny. 

A man, indeed! He strove not for a place, 

Nor rest, nor rule. He daily walked with God. 

His willing feet with service swift were shod — 

An eager soul to serve the human race, 

Illume the mind, and fill the heart with grace — 
Hope blooms afresh where’er those feet have trod. 


Paul Derrick. 
















THE LAW AND THE 
WORD 


CHAPTER I 

Some Facts in Nature 

If I were asked what, in my opinion, dis¬ 
tinguishes the thought of the present day from 
that of a previous generation, I should feel in¬ 
clined to say, it is the fact that people are be¬ 
ginning to realize that Thought is a power in 
itself, one of the great forces of the Universe, 
and ultimately the greatest of forces, directing 
all the others. This idea seems to be, as the 
French say, “ in the air,” and this very well ex¬ 
presses the state of the case — the idea is rap¬ 
idly spreading through many countries and 
through all classes, but it is still very much “ in 
the air.” It is to a great extent as yet only 
in a gaseous condition, vague and nebulous, and 
so not leading to the practical results, both in- 


2 


The Law and the Word 


dividual and collective, which might be ex¬ 
pected of it, if it were consolidated into a more 
workable form. We are like some amateurs 
who want to paint finished pictures before they 
have studied the elements of Art, and when 
they see an artist do without difficulty what 
they vainly attempt, they look upon him as a 
being specially favoured by Providence, in¬ 
stead of putting it down to their own want of 
knowledge. The idea is true. Thought is the 
great power of the Universe. But to make it 
practically available we must know something 
of the principles by which it works — that it is 
not a mere vaporous indefinable influence float¬ 
ing around and subject to no known laws, but 
that on the contrary, it follows laws as un¬ 
compromising as those of mathematics, while 
at the same time allowing unlimited freedom 
to the individual. 

Now the purpose of the following pages, is 
to suggest to the reader the lines on which to 
find his way out of this nebulous sort of thought 
into something more solid and reliable. I do 
not profess, like a certain Negro preacher, to 
“unscrew the inscrutable,” for we can never 
reach a point where we shall not find the in¬ 
scrutable still ahead of us; but if I can indi- 



Some Facts in Nature 3 

cate the use of a screw-driver instead of a 
hatchet, and that the screws should be turned 
from left to right, instead of from right to 
left, it may enable us to unscrew some things 
which would otherwise remain screwed down 
tight. We are all beginners, and indeed the 
hopefulness of life is in realizing that there 
are such vistas of unending possibilities before 
us, that however far we may advance, we shall 
always be on the threshold of something 
greater. We must be like Peter Pan, the boy 
who never grew up — heaven defend me from 
ever feeling quite grown up, for then I should 
come to a standstill; so the reader must take 
what I have to say simply as the talk of one 
boy to another in the Great School, and not ex¬ 
pect too much. 

The first question then is, where to begin. 
Descartes commenced his book with the words 
“ Cogito, ergo sum.” “ I think, therefore I 
am,” and we cannot do better than follow his 
example. There are two things about which 
we cannot have any doubt — our own exist¬ 
ence, and that of the world around us. But 
what is it in us that is aware of these two 
things, that hopes and fears and plans regard¬ 
ing them? Certainly not our flesh and bones. 


4 


The Law and the Word 


A man whose leg has been amputated is able to 
think just the same. Therefore it is obvious 
that there is something in us which receives 
impressions and forms ideas, that reasons upon 
facts and determines upon courses of action 
and carries them out, which is not the physi¬ 
cal body. This is the real “ I Myself.” This 
is the Person we are really concerned with; 
and it is the betterment of this “ I Myself ” 
that makes it worth while to enquire what our 
Thought has to do in the matter. 

Equally true it is on the other hand that the 
forces of Nature around us do not think. 
Steam, electricity, gravitation, and chemical af¬ 
finity do not think. They follow certain fixed 
laws which we have no power to alter. There¬ 
fore we are confronted at the outset by a broad 
distinction between two modes of Motion — 
the Movement of Thought and the Movement 
of Cosmic Energy — the one based upon the 
exercise of Consciousness and Will, and the 
other based upon Mathematical Sequence. 
This is why that system of instruction known 
as Free Masonry starts by erecting the two 
symbolic pillars Jachin and Boaz — Jachin so 
called from the root “ Yak ” meaning “ One,” 
indicating the Mathematical element of Law; 


Some Facts in Nature 5 

and Boaz, from the root “ Awaz ” meaning 
“ Voice ” indicating Personal element of Free 
Will. These names are taken from the descrip¬ 
tion in I Kings vii, 21 and II Chron. iii, 17 of 
the building of Solomon’s Temple, where these 
two pillars stood before the entrance, the mean¬ 
ing being that the Temple of Truth cart only 
be entered by passing between them, that is, by 
giving each of these factors their due relation 
to the other, and by realizing that they are the 
two Pillars of the Universe, and that no real 
progress can be made except by finding the true 
balance between them. Law and Personality 
— these are the two great principles with which 
we have to deal, and the problem is to square 
the one with the other. 

Let me start, then, by considering some well 
established facts in the physical world which 
show how the known Law acts under certain 
known conditions, and this will lead us on in 
an intelligible manner to see how the same 
Law is likely to work under as yet unknown 
conditions. If we had to deal with unknown 
laws as well as unknown conditions we should, 
indeed, be up a gum tree. Fancy a mathema¬ 
tician having to solve an equation, both sides of 
which were entirely made up of unknown 


6 


The Law and the Word 


quantities — where would he be? Happily 
this is not the case. The Law is ONE 
throughout, and the apparent variety of its 
working results from the infinite variety of the 
conditions under which it may work. Let us 
lay a foundation, then, by seeing how it works 
in what we call the common course of Nature. 
A few examples will suffice. 

Hardly more than a generation ago it was 
supposed that the analysis of matter could not 
be carried further than its reduction to some 
seventy primary chemical elements, which in 
various combinations produced all material 
substances; but there was no explanation how 
all these different elements came into exist¬ 
ence. Each appeared to be an original crea¬ 
tion, and there was no accounting for them. 
But now-a.-days, as the rustic physician says in 
Moliere’s play of the “ Medecin Malgre Lui,” 
“ nous avons change tout cela.” Modern 
science has shown conclusively that every kind 
of chemical atom is composed of particles of 
one original substance which appears to per¬ 
vade all space, and to which the name of Ether 
has been given. Some of these particles carry 
a positive charge of electricity and some a neg¬ 
ative, and the chemical atom is formed by the 


Some Facts in Nature 


7 


grouping of a certain number of negatively 
charged particles round a centre composed of 
positive electricity around which they revolve; 
and it is the number of these particles and the 
rate of their motion that determines the nature 
of the atom, whether, for instance, it will be 
an atom of iron or an atom of hydrogen, and 
thus we are brought back to Plato’s old aphor¬ 
ism that the Universe consists of Number and 
Motion. 

The size of these etheric particles is small 
beyond anything but abstract mathematical con¬ 
ception. Sir Oliver Lodge is reported to have 
made the following comparison in a lecture 
delivered at Birmingham. “ The chemical 
atom/’ he said, “ is as small in comparison to 
a drop of water as a cricket-ball is compared 
to the globe of the earth; and yet this atom is 
as large in comparison to one of its constituent 
particles as Birmingham town-hall is to a pin’s 
head.” Again, it has been said that in pro¬ 
portion to the size of the particles the distance 
at which they revolve round the centre of the 
atom is as great as the distance from the earth 
to the sun. I must leave the realization of 
such infinite minuteness to the reader’s imag¬ 
ination — it is beyond mine. 


8 


The Law and the Word 


Modern science thus shows us all material 
substance, whether that of inanimate matter 
or that of our own bodies, as proceeding out 
of one primary etheric substance occupying all 
space and homogeneous, that is being of a uni¬ 
form substance — and having no qualities to 
distinguish one part from another. Now this 
conclusion of science is important because it 
is precisely the fact that out of this homoge¬ 
neous substance particles are produced which 
differ from the original substance in that they 
possess positive and negative energy and of 
these particles the atom is built up. So then 
comes the question: What started this dif¬ 
ferentiation ? 

The electronic theory which I have just men¬ 
tioned takes us as far as a universal homoge¬ 
neous ether as the source from which all mat¬ 
ter is evolved, but it does not account for how 
motion originated in it; but perhaps another 
closely allied scientific theory will help us. 
Let us, then, turn to the question of Vibra¬ 
tions or Waves in Ether. In scientific lan¬ 
guage the length of a wave is the distance from 
the crest of one wave to that of the wave im¬ 
mediately following it. Now modern science 
recognizes a long series of waves in ether, com- 


Some Facts in Nature 9 

mencing with the smallest yet known measur¬ 
ing 0.1 micron, or about —-— of an inch, in 
length, measured by Professor Schumann in 
1893, an d extending to waves of many miles 
in length used in wireless telegraphy — for in¬ 
stance those employed between Clifden in Gal¬ 
way and Glace Bay in Nova Scotia are esti¬ 
mated to have a length of nearly four miles. 
These infinitesimally small ultra-violet or ac¬ 
tinic waves, as they are called, are the principal 
agents in photography, and the great waves of 
wireless telegraphy are able to carry a force 
across the Atlantic which can sensibly affect 
the apparatus on the other side; therefore we 
see that the ether of space affords a medium 
through which energy can be transmitted by 
means of vibrations. 

But what starts the vibrations? Hertz an¬ 
nounced his discovery of the electro-magnetic 
waves, now known by his name, in 1888; but, 
following up the labours of various other in¬ 
vestigators, Lodge, Marconi and others finally 
developed their practical application after 
Hertz’s death which occurred in 1894. To 
Hertz, however, belongs the honour of discov¬ 
ering how to generate these waves by means 
of sudden, sharply defined, electrical discharges. 



IO 


The Laiv and the Word 


The principle may be illustrated by dropping 
a stone in smooth water. The sudden impact 
sets up a series of ripples all round the centre 
of disturbance, and the electrical impulse acts 
similarly in the ether. Indeed the fact that 
the waves flow in all directions from the cen¬ 
tral impulse is one of the difficulties of wire¬ 
less telegraphy, because the message may be 
picked up in any direction by a receiver tuned 
to the same rate of vibration, and the interest 
for us consists in the hypothesis that thought- 
waves act in an analogous manner. 

That vibrations are excited by sound is beau¬ 
tifully exemplified by the eidophone, an instru¬ 
ment invented, I believe, by Mrs. Watts- 
Hughes, and with which I have seen that lady 
experiment. Dry sand is scattered on a dia¬ 
phragm on which the eidophone concentrates 
the vibrations from music played near it. The 
sand, as it were, dances in time to the music, 
and when the music stops is found to settle 
into definite forms, sometimes like a tree or a 
flower, or else some geometrical figure, but 
never a confused jumble. Perhaps in this we 
may find the origin of the legends regarding 
the creative power of Orpheus’ lyre, and also 


Some Facts in Nature n 

the sacred dances of the ancients — who 
knows! 

Perhaps some critical reader may object that 
sound travels by means of atmospheric and not 
etheric waves; but is he prepared to say that 
it cannot produce etheric waves also. The very 
recent discovery of transatlantic telephoning 
tends to show that etheric waves can be gen¬ 
erated by sound, for on the 20th of October, 
1915, words spoken in New York were im¬ 
mediately heard in Paris, and could therefore 
only have been transmitted through the ether, 
for sound travels through the atmosphere only 
at the rate of about 750 miles an hour, while 
the speed of impulses through ether can only 
be compared to that of light or 186,000 miles 
in a second. It is therefore a fair inference 
that etheric vibrations can be inaugurated by 
sound. 

Perhaps the reader may feel inclined to say 
with the Irishman that all this is “ as dry as 
ditch-water/’ but he will see before long that 
it has a good deal to do with ourselves. For 
the present what I want him to realize by a 
few examples is the mathematical accuracy of 
Law. The value of these examples lies in 


12 The Law and the Word 

their illustration of the fact that the Law can 
always be trusted to lead us on to further 
knowledge. We see it working under known 
conditions, and relying on its unchangeableness, 
we can then logically infer what it will do un¬ 
der other hypothetical conditions, and in this 
way many important discoveries have been 
made. For instance it was in this way that 
Mendeleef, the Russian chemist, assumed the 
existence of three then unknown chemical ele¬ 
ments, now called Scandium, Gallium and Ger¬ 
manium. There was a gap in the orderly se¬ 
quence of the chemical elements, and relying 
on the old maxim —“ Natura nihil facit per 
saltum ”— Nature nowhere leaves a gap to 
jump over — he argued that if such elements 
did not exist they ought to, and so he calcu¬ 
lated what these elements ought to be like, 
giving their atomic weight, chemical affinities, 
and the like; and when they were discovered 
many years later they were found to answer 
exactly to his description. He prophesied, not 
by guesswork, but by knowledge of the Law; 
and in much the same way radium was discov¬ 
ered by Professor and Madame Curie. In like 
manner Hertz was led to the discovery of the 
electro-magnetic waves. The celebrated math- 


Some Facts in Nature 13 

ematican Clerk-Maxwell had calculated all par¬ 
ticulars of these waves twenty-five years before 
Hertz, on the basis of these calculations, 
worked out his discovery. Again, Neptune, 
the outermost known planet of our system was 
discovered by the astronomer Galle in conse¬ 
quence of calculations made by Leverrier. 
Certain variations in the movements of the 
planets were mathematically unaccountable ex¬ 
cept on the hypothesis that some more remote 
planet existed. Astronomers had faith in 
mathematics and the hypothetical planet was 
found to be a reality. Instances of this kind 
might be multiplied, but as the French say “ a 
quoi bon ? ” I think these will be sufficient to 
convince the reader that the invariable sequence 
of Law is a factor to be relied upon, and that 
by studying its working under known condi¬ 
tions we may get at least some measure of light 
on conditions which are as yet unknown to us. 

Let us now pass on to the human subject and 
consider a few examples of what is usually 
called the psychic side of our nature. Walt 
Whitman was quite right when he said that 
we are not all included between our hat and 
our boots; we shall find that our modes of con¬ 
sciousness and powers of action are not en- 


14 


The Law and the Word 


tirely restricted to our physical body. The im¬ 
portance of this line of enquiry lies in the fact 
that if we do possess extra-physical powers, 
these also form part of our personality and 
must be included in our estimate of our rela¬ 
tion to our environment, and it is therefore 
worth our while to consider them. 

Some very interesting experiments have been 
made by De Rochas, &n eminent French scien¬ 
tist, which go to show that under certain mag¬ 
netic conditions the sensation of physical touch 
can be experienced at some distance from the 
body. He found that under these conditions 
the person experimented on is insensible to the 
prick of a needle run into his skin, but if the 
prick is made about an inch-and-a-half away 
from the surface of the skin he feels it. Again 
at about three inches from this point he feels 
the prick of the needle, but is insensible to it 
in the space between these two points. Then 
there comes another interval in which no sen¬ 
sation is conveyed, but at about three inches 
still further away he again feels the sensation, 
and so on; so that he appears to be surrounded 
by successive zones of sensation, the first about 
an inch-and-a-half from the body, and the oth¬ 
ers at intervals of about three inches each. 


Some Facts in Nature 15 

The number of these zones seems to vary in 
different cases, but in some there are as many 
as six or seven, thus giving a radius of sensa¬ 
tion, extending to more than twenty inches be¬ 
yond the body. 

Now to explain this we must have recourse 
to what I have already said about waves. The 
heart and the lungs are the two centres of 
automatic rhythmic movement in the body, and 
each projects its own series of vibrations into 
the etheric envelope. Those projected by the 
lungs are estimated to be three times the length 
of those projected by the heart, while those 
projected by the heart are three times as rapid 
as those projected by the lungs. Consequently 
if the two sets of waves start together the crest 
of every third wave of the rapid series of short 
waves will coincide with the crest of one of 
the long waves of the slower series, while the 
intermediate short waves will coincide with the 
depression of one of the long waves. Now 
the effect of the crest of one wave overtaking 
that of another going in the same direction, is 
to raise the two together at that point into a 
single wave of greater amplitude or height than 
the original waves had by themselves; if the 
reader has the opportunity of studying the in- 


16 The Law and the Word 

flowing of waves on the seabeach he can verify 
this for himself. Consequently when the more 
rapid etheric waves overtake the slower ones 
they combine to form a larger wave, and it is 
at these points that the zones of sensation oc¬ 
cur. If the reader will draw a diagram of two 
waved lines travelling along the same horizon¬ 
tal line and so proportioned that the crest of 
each of the large waves coincides with the crest 
of every third wave of the small ones, he will 
see what I mean: and if he then recollects that 
the fall in the larger waves neutralizes the rise 
in the smaller ones, and that because this dou¬ 
ble series starts from the interior of the body 
the surface of the body comes just at one of 
these neutralized points, he will see why sen¬ 
sation is neutralized there; and he will also see 
why the succeeding zones of sensation are dou¬ 
ble the distance from each other that the first 
one is from the surface of the body; it is sim¬ 
ply because the surface of the body cuts the 
first long wave exactly in the middle, and 
therefore only half that wave occurs outside 
the body. This is the explanation given by 
De Rochas, and it affords another example of 
that principle of mathematical sequence of 
which I have spoken. It would appear that un- 


Some Facts in Nature 


17 


der normal conditions the double series of vi¬ 
brations is spread all over the body, and so all 
parts are alike sensitive to touch. 

I think, then, we may assume on the basis of 
De Rochas’ experiments and others that there 
are such things as etheric vibrations proceeding 
from human personality, and in the next chap¬ 
ter I will give some examples showing that the 
psychic personality extends still further than 
these experiments, taken by themselves, would 
indicate — in fact that we possess an additional 
range of faculties far exceeding those which 
we ordinarily exercise through the physical 
body, and which must therefore be included in 
our conception of ourselves if we are to have 
an adequate idea of what we really are. 




CHAPTER II 


Some Psychic Experiences 

The preceding chapter has introduced the 
reader to the general subject of etheric vibra¬ 
tion as one of the natural forces of the Uni¬ 
verse, both as the foundation of all matter and 
as the medium for the transmission of energy 
to immense distances, and also as something 
continually emanating from human beings. In 
the present chapter I shall consider it more 
particularly in this last aspect, which, as in¬ 
cluded in our own personality, very imme¬ 
diately concerns ourselves. I will commence 
with an instance of the practical application of 
this fact. Some years ago I was lunching at 

the house of Lady-in company of a well- 

known mental healer whom I will call Mr. Y. 
and a well-known London physician whom I 
will call Dr. W. Mr. Y. mentioned the case 
of a lady whose leg had been amputated above 
the knee some years previously to her coming 
under hisrcare, yet she frequently felt pains in 
18 



Some Psychic Experiences 19 

the (amputated) knee and lower part of the 
left leg and foot. Dr. W. said this was to be 
attributed to the nerves which convey to the 
brain the sensation of the extremities, much as 
a telegraph line might be tapped in the middle, 
and Mr. Y. agreed that this was perfectly true 
on the purely physical side. But he went on 
to say, that accidentally putting his hand where 
the amputated foot should have been he felt 
it there. Then it occurred to him that since 
there was no material foot to be touched, it 
must be through the medium of his own psychic 
aody that the sensation of touch was conveyed 
:o him, and accordingly he asked the lady to 
magine that she was making various move- 
nents with the amputated limb, all of which he 
felt, and was able to tell her what each move- 
nent was, which she said he did correctly. 
Then, to carry the experiment further, he re¬ 
versed the process and with his hand moved the 
nvisible leg and foot in various ways, all of 
vhich the lady felt and described. He then 
letermined to treat the invisible leg as though 
t were a real one, and joined up the circuit by 
aking her left foot in his right hand and her 
ight foot (the amputated one) in his left, 
vith the result that she immediately felt re- 



20 The Law and the Word 

lief; and after successive treatments in this 
way was entirely cured. 

A well authenticated case like this opens up 
a good many interesting questions regarding 
the Psychic Body, but the most important point 
appears to me to be that we are able to expe¬ 
rience sensation by means of it. In this case, 
however, and those mentioned in the preceding 
chapter, the physical body was actually present, 
and if we stopped at this point, we might ques¬ 
tion whether its presence was not a sine qua 
non for the action of the etheric vibrations. I 
will therefore pass on to a class of examples 
which show that very curious phenomena can 
take place without the physical body being on 
the spot. There are numerous well verified 
cases of the kind to be found in the records of 
the Society for Psychical Research and in 
other books by trustworthy writers; but it may 
perhaps interest the present reader to hear one 
or two instances of my personal experience 
which, though they may not be so striking as 
some of those recorded by others, still point in 
the same direction. 

My first introduction to Scotland was when 
I delivered the course of lectures in Edinburgh 
which led to the publication of my first book, 



Some Psychic Experiences 21 

the “ Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science. ,, 
The following years I gave a second course of 
lectures in Edinburgh, but the friends who had 
kindly entertained me on the former occasion 
had in the meanwhile gone to live elsewhere. 
However, a certain Mr. S., whose acquaintance 
I had made on my previous visit, invited me 
to stay with him for a day or two while I could 
look round for other accommodation, though, 
as it turned out, I remained at his house dur¬ 
ing the whole month I was in Edinburgh. I 
had, however, never seen his house, which was 
on the opposite side of the town to where I 
had stayed before. I arrived there on a Tues¬ 
day, and Mr. S. and his family at once met 
me with the question: 

“ What were you thinking of at ten o’clock 
on Sunday evening? ” 

I could not immediately recall this, and also 
wanted to know the reason of their question. 

“ We have something curious to tell you,” 
they replied, “ but first try to remember what 
you were thinking of at ten o’clock on Sun¬ 
day evening — were you thinking about us ? ” 

Then I recollected that about that time I 
was saying my usual prayers before going to 
bed and had asked that, if I could stay only a 


22 The Law and the Word 

day or two with Mr. S., I should be directed 
to a suitable place for the remainder of the 
time. 

“ That explains it,” they replied; and then 
they went on to tell me that at the hour in 
question Mr. S. and his son, a young man of 
about twenty, had entered their dining-room 
together and seen me standing leaning against 
the mantel-shelf. They were both hard-headed 
Scotchmen engaged in business in Edinburgh, 
and certainly not the sort of people to conjure 
up fanciful imaginings, nor is it likely that the 
same fancy should have occurred to both of 
them; and therefore I can only suppose that 
they actually saw what they said they did. 
Now I myself was in London at the time of 
this appearance in Edinburgh, of which I had 
no consciousness whatever; at the same time 
the fact of my being seen in Edinburgh ex¬ 
actly at the time when my thought, in prayer, 
was centred upon Mr. S.’s house (which I had 
not then seen) is a coincidence suggesting that 
in some way my Thought had made itself vis¬ 
ible there in the image of my external person¬ 
ality. 

In this case, as I have said, I was not con¬ 
scious of my psychic visit to Edinburgh, but I 





Some Psychic Experiences 23 

will now relate a converse instance, which oc¬ 
curred in connection with my first visit there. 
At that time I had never been in Scotland, and 
so far as I knew was never likely to go there. 
I was wide awake, writing in my study at Nor¬ 
wood, where I then lived, when I suddenly 
found myself in a place totally unknown to me, 
where stood the ruins of an ancient abbey, part 
of which, however, was still roofed over and 
used as a place of worship. I felt much in¬ 
terested, and among other things I noted a 
Latin inscription on a tablet in one of the walls. 
There seemed to be an invisible guide showing 
me over the place, who then pointed out a long 
low house opposite the abbey, and said: 
“ This is the house of the clergyman of the 
abbey ”; and I was then taken inside the house 
and shown a number of antique-looking rooms. 
Then I came to myself, and found I was sit¬ 
ting at my writing-table in Norwood. I had, 
however, a clear recollection of the place I had 
seen, but no idea where it was, or indeed 
whether any such place really existed. I also 
remembered a portion of the Latin inscription, 
which I at once wrote down in a note-book, as 
my curiosity was aroused. 

As I have said, I had no reason at that time 


24 


The Law and the Word 


to suppose I should ever go to Scotland, but 
some weeks later I was invited to lecture in 
Edinburgh. Another visitor in the house 
where I was a guest there, was the wife of the 
County Court Judge of Cumberland, and I 
showed her and our hostess the part of the 
Latin inscription I had retained, and suggested 
that perhaps it might exist somewhere in Edin¬ 
burgh. However nothing answering to what 
I had seen was to be found, so we relegated 
the whole thing to the region of unaccountable 
fancies, and thought no more about it. The 
Judge's wife took her departure before me, and 
kindly invited me to spend a few days at their 
residence near Carlisle on my return journey, 
which I did. One day she drove me out to 
see Lanercost Abbey, one of the show-places of 
the neighbourhood, and walking round the 
building I found in one of the walls the Latin 

inscription in question. I called Mrs. -, 

who was a little way off, and said: “ Look at 

this inscription." 

She at once replied: “ Why! that is the very 

inscription we were all puzzling over in Edin¬ 
burgh!" 

It turned out to be an inscription in memory 
of the founder of the abbey, dating from some- 



Some Psychic Experiences 25 

where in the eleven-hundreds. The whole 
place answered exactly to what I had seen, and 
the long low parsonage was there also. 

“ I should have liked you to see it inside,” 

said Mrs. -, “but I have never met the 

vicar, though I know his mother-in-law, so we 
must give it up.” 

We were just entering our carriage when 
the garden-gate opened, and who should come 
out but the mother-in-law. 

“ Oh, Mrs. -,” she said, addressing the 

Judge’s wife, “ I am here on a visit and you 
must come in and take tea.” So we went in 
and were shown over the house, much as I had 
been in my vision, and some portions were so 
old that, among other rooms, we were shown 
the one occupied by King Edward I on his 
march against Scotland in the year 1296, when 
the Scottish regalia was captured, and the cele¬ 
brated Crowning-Stone was brought to Eng¬ 
land and placed in Westminster Abbey, where 
it has ever since remained — a stone having an 
occult relation to the history of the British 
and American peoples of the highest interest 
to both, but as there is already an extensive 
literature on this subject I will not enter upon 
it here. 



26 The Law and the Word 

I will now relate another curious experience. 
We had only recently taken up our residence 
at Norwood, when one day I was seated in the 
dining-room, but suddenly found myself in the 
hall, and saw two ladies going up the stairs. 
They passed close to me, and turning round 
the landing at the top of the stairs passed out 
of sight in a perfectly natural manner. They 
looked as solid as any one I have ever seen in 
my life. One of them was a stout lady with 
a rather florid complexion, apparently between 
forty-five and fifty, wearing a silk blouse with 
thin purple and white stripes. Leaning on her 
arm was a slightly-built old lady with white 
ringlets, dressed all in black and wearing a lace 
mantilla. I noticed their appearance particu¬ 
larly. The next moment I found I was really 
sitting in the dining-room, and that the ladies 
I had seen were nothing but visionary figures. 
I wondered what it could mean, but as we had 
only recently taken the house, thought it bet¬ 
ter not to mention it to any of my family, for 
fear of causing them alarm. But a few days 
later I mentioned it to a Mrs. F. who I knew 
had had some experience in such matters, 
and she said: “ You have seen either some 

one who has lived in the house or who is 


Some Psychic Experiences 27 

going to live there.” Then the matter dropped. 

About a month later my wife arranged by 
correspondence for a certain Miss B. to come 
as governess to our children. When she ar¬ 
rived there was no mistaking her identity. 
She was the stout lady I had seen, and the 
next morning she came down to breakfast 
dressed in the identical blouse with purple and 
white stripes. There was no mistaking her, 
but I was puzzled as to who the other figure 
could be whom I had seen along with her. I 
resolved, however, to say nothing about the 
matter until we became better acquainted, lest 
she should think that my mind was not quite 
balanced. I therefore held my peace for six 
months, at the end of which time I concluded 
that we knew enough of each other to allow 
one another credit for being fairly level-headed. 
Then I thought, now if I tell her what I saw 
she may perhaps be acted upon by suggestion 
and imagine a resemblance between the un¬ 
known figure and some acquaintance of hers, 
so I will not begin by telling her of the vision, 
but will first ask if she knows any one answer¬ 
ing to the description, and give her the reason 
afterwards. I therefore took a suitable oppor¬ 
tunity of asking her if she knew any such per- 


28 


The Law and the Word 


son, describing the figure to her as accurately 
as I could. 

Her look of surprise grew as I went on, and 
when I had finished she explained with aston¬ 
ishment: “ Why, Mr. Troward, where could 
you have seen my mother ? She is an invalid, 
and I am certain you have never seen her, and 
yet you have described her most accurately.” 

Then I told her what I had seen. She asked 
what I thought was the explanation of the ap¬ 
pearance, and the only explanation I could give 
was, that I supposed she was on the look-out 
for a post and paid us a preliminary visit to 
see whether ours would suit her, and that, be¬ 
ing naturally interested in her welfare, her 
mother had accompanied her. Perhaps you 
will say: “What came of it?” Well, noth¬ 
ing “ came of it,” nor did anything “ come ” 
of my psychic visits to Edinburgh and Laner- 
cost Abbey. Such occurrences seem to be sim¬ 
ple facts in Nature which, though on some oc¬ 
casions connected with premonitions of more or 
less importance, are by no means necessarily 
so. They are the functioning of certain fac¬ 
ulties which we all possess, but of the nature of 
which we as yet know very little. 

It will be noticed that in the first of these 


Some Psychic Experiences 29 

three cases I myself was the person seen, 
though unaware of the fact. In the last I was 
the percipient, but the persons seen by me were 
unconscious of their visit; and in the second 
case I was conscious of my presence at a place 
which I had never heard of, and which I vis¬ 
ited some time after. In two of these cases, 
therefore, the persons, making the psychic visit, 
were not aware of having done so, while in 
the third, a memory of what had been seen 
was retained. But all three cases have this in 
common, that the psychic visit was not the re¬ 
sult of an act of conscious volition, and also, 
that the psychic action took place at a long dis¬ 
tance from the physical body. 

From these personal experiences, as well as 
from many well authenticated cases recorded 
bv other writers, I should be inclined to infer 
that the psychic action isrentirely independent 
of the physical body, and in support of this 
view I will cite yet another experience. 

It was about the year 1875, when I was a 
young Assistant Commissioner in the Punjab, 
that I was ordered to the small up-country sta¬ 
tion of Akalpur, 1 and took possession of the 

1 For various reasons I am not giving the actual 
names of places and persons in this story. 


30 The Law and the Word 

Assistant Commissioner's bungalow there. 
On the night of our arrival in the bungalow, my 
wife and I had our charpoys — light Indian 
bedsteads — placed side by side in a certain 
room and went to bed. The last thing I re¬ 
membered before falling asleep, was seeing my 
wife sitting up in bed, reading with a lamp on 
a small table beside her. Suddenly I was 
awakened by the sound of a shot, and starting 
up, found the room in darkness. I im¬ 
mediately lit a candle which was on a chair by 
my bedside, and found my wife still sitting up 
with the book on her knee, but the lamp had 
gone out. 

“ Take me away, take me into another 
room,” she exclaimed. 

“ Why, what is the matter ? ” I said. 

“ Did you not see it? ” she replied. 

“ See what ? ” I asked. 

“ Don't stop to ask any questions,” she re¬ 
plied; “get me out of this room at once; I 
can’t stop here another minute.” 

I saw she was very frightened, so I called 
up the servants, and had our beds removed to 
a room on the other side of the house, and 
then she told me what she had seen. She 
said: “ I was sitting reading as you saw me, 


Some Psychic Experiences 31 

when looking round, I saw the figure of an 
Englishman standing close by my bedside, a 
fine-looking man with a large fair moustache 
and dressed in a grey suit. I was so surprised 
that I could not speak, and we remained look¬ 
ing at each other for about a minute. Then 
he bent over me and whispered: “ Don’t be 

afraid,” and with that there was the sound of 
a shot, and everything was in darkness. 

“ My dear girl, you must have fallen asleep 
over your book and been dreaming,” I said. 

“ No, I was wide awake,” she insisted; “ you 
were asleep, but I was awake all the time. But 
you heard the shot, did you not ? ” 

“ Yes,” I replied, “ that is what woke me — 
some one must have fired a shot outside.” 

“ But why should any one be shooting in our 
garden at nearly midnight? ” my wife objected. 

It certain'seemed strange, but it was the only 
explanation that suggested itself; so we had to 
agree to differ, she being convinced that she 
had seen a ghost, and that the shot had been 
inside the room, and I being equally convinced 
that she had been dreaming, and that the shot 
had been fired outside the house. 

The next morning the owner of the bunga¬ 
low, an old widow lady, Mrs. La Chaire, called 


32 


The Lazv and the Word 


to make kindly enquiries as to whether she 
could be of any service to us on our arrival. 
After thanking her, my wife said: “ I expect 

you will laugh at me, but I cannot help telling 
you there is something strange about the bunga¬ 
low ”; and she then went on to narrate what 
she had seen. 

Instead of laughing the old lady looked more 
and more serious as she went on, and when 
she had done asked to be shown exactly where 
the apparition had appeared. My wife took 
her to the spot, and on being shown it old Mrs. 
La Chaire exclaimed: “ This is the most 

wonderful thing I have ever heard of. Eight¬ 
een years ago my bed was on the very spot 
where yours was last night, and I was lying in 
it too ill to move, when my husband, whom 
you have described most accurately, stood 
where you saw him and shot himself dead.” 

This statement of the widow convinced me 
that my wife had really seen what she said she 
had, and had not dreamed it; and this expe¬ 
rience has led me to make further enquiries 
into the nature of happenings of this kind, with 
the result, that after carefully eliminating all 
cases which could be accounted for in any other 
manner, I have found myself compelled to ad- 


Some Psychic Experiences 33 

mit a considerable number of instances of what 
are called “ ghosts,” on the word of persons 
whose veracity and soundness of judgment I 
should not doubt on any other subject. It is 
often said that you never meet any one who 
has themselves seen a ghost, but only those 
who have heard of somebody else seeing one. 
This I can entirely contradict, for I have met 
with many trustworthy persons of both sexes, 
who have given me accounts of such appear¬ 
ances having been actually witnessed by them¬ 
selves. In conclusion, I may mention that I 
was telling this story some twenty years later 
to a Colonel Fox, who had known the unfortu¬ 
nate man who committed suicide, and he said 
to me: “ Do you know what were the last 

words he said to his wife? ” 

“ No,” I replied. 

“ The very same words he spoke to your 
wife,” said Colonel Fox. 

This is the story I refer to in my book 
“ Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning ” as that 
of “ the Ghost that I did not see.” I do not at¬ 
tempt to offer any explanation of it, but merely 
give the facts as they occurred, and the reader 
must form his own theory on the subject; but 
the reason I bring in this story in the present 





34 The Law and the Word 

connection is, that in this instance there could 
be no question of the physical body contribut¬ 
ing to the psychic phenomenon, since the per¬ 
son seen had been dead for nearly twenty years; 
and coupling this fact with the distance from 
the physical body at which the psychic action 
took place in the other cases I have mentioned, 
I think there is a very strong presumption that 
the psychic powers can, and do, act independ¬ 
ently of the physical body; though of course it 
does not follow from this that they cannot also 
act in conjunction with it. 

On the other hand, a comparison of the pres¬ 
ent case with those previously mentioned, fails 
to throw any light on the important question 
whether the deceased feels any consciousness 
of the action which the percipient sees, or 
whether what is seen is like a sort of photo¬ 
graph impressed upon the atmosphere of a par¬ 
ticular locality, and visible only to certain per¬ 
sons, who are able to sense etheric wave-lengths 
which are outside the range of the single oc¬ 
tave forming the solar spectrum. It throws 
no light on this question, because, in the case 
of my being seen by Mr. S. in Edinburgh and 
that of Miss B. and her mother being seen 
by me at Norwood, none of us were conscious 




Some Psychic Experiences 35 

of having been at those places; while in the 
case of my psychic visit to Lanercost Abbey, 
and other similar experiences I have had, I 
have been fully aware of seeing the places in 
question. The evidence tells both ways, and I 
can therefore only infer that there are two 
modes of psychic action, in one of which the 
person projecting that action, whether volun¬ 
tarily or involuntarily, experiences correspond¬ 
ing sensations, and the other in which he does 
not; but I am unable to offer any criterion by 
which the observer can, with certainty, dis¬ 
tinguish between the two. 

It appears to me, that such instances as those 
I have mentioned, point to ranges of etheric 
action beyond those ordinarily recognized by 
physical science, but the principle seems to be 
the same, and it is for this reason that I have 
taken the modern scientific theory of ether ic 
vibration as our starting-point. The universe 
is one great whole, and the laws of one part 
cannot contradict those of another; therefore 
the explanation of such queer happenings is 
not to be found by denying the well-ascertained 
laws of Nature on the physical plane, but by 
considering whether these laws do not extend 
further. It is on this account that I would lay 


36 The Law and the Word 

stress on the Mathematical side of things, and 
have adduced instances where various discov¬ 
eries have been made by following up the se¬ 
quence indicated by the laws already known, 
and which have thus enabled us to fill up gaps 
in our knowledge, which would otherwise stop, 
or at least seriously hinder, our further prog¬ 
ress. It is in this way that Jachin helps Boaz, 
and that the undeviating nature of Law, so far 
from limiting us, becomes our faithful ally if 
we will only allow it to do so. 

I think, then, that the scientific idea of the 
ether, as a universal medium pervading all 
space, and permeating all substance, will help 
us to see that many things which are popularly 
called super-natural, are to be attributed to the 
action of known laws working under, as yet, 
unknown conditions, and therefore, when we 
are confronted with strange phenomena, a 
knowledge of the general principles involved, 
will show us in what direction to look for an 
explanation. Now applying this to the present 
subject, we may reasonably argue, that since 
all physical matter is scientifically proved to 
consist of the universal ether in various de¬ 
grees of condensation, there may be other de¬ 
grees of condensation, forming other modes of 


Some Psychic Experiences 37 

matter, which are beyond the scope of physi¬ 
cal vision and of our laboratory apparatus. 
And similarly, we may argue, that just as va¬ 
rious effects can be produced on the physical 
plane, by the action of etheric waves of various 
lengths, so other effects might be produced on 
these finer modes of matter, by etheric waves of 
other lengths. And in this connection we must 
not forget that a gap occurs between the “ dark 
heat ” groups and the Hertzian group, consist¬ 
ing of five octaves of waves, the lengths of 
which have been theoretically calculated, but 
whose action has not yet been discovered. 
Here we admittedly have a wide field for the 
working of known laws under as yet unknown 
conditions; and again, how can we say that 
there are not ranges of unknown waves, yet 
smaller than the minute ultra-violet ones, which 
commence the present known scale, or trans¬ 
cending those largest ones, which bear our mes¬ 
sages across the Atlantic ? Mathematically, 
there is no limit to the scale in either direc¬ 
tion; and so, taking our stand on the demon¬ 
strated facts of science, we find, that the known 
laws of Nature point to their continuation in 
modes of matter and of force, of which we 
have as yet no conception. It is therefore not 


38 The Law and the Word 

at all necessary to spurn the ground of estab¬ 
lished science to spread the wings of our fancy; 
rather it affords us the requisite basis from 
which to start, just as the aeronaut cannot rise 
without a solid surface from which to spring. 

Now if we realize that the ether is an in¬ 
finitely subtle fluid, pervading all space, we see 
that it must constitute a connecting link be¬ 
tween all modes of substance, whether visible 
or invisible, in all worlds, and may therefore 
be called the Universal Medium; and following 
up our conception of the Continuity of Law, 
we may suppose that trains of waves, incon¬ 
ceivably smaller or greater than any known to 
modern science, are set up in this medium, in 
the same way as the electro-magnetic waves 
with which we are acquainted; that is, by an 
impulse which generates them from some par¬ 
ticular point. In the region of finer forces we 
are now prospecting, this impulse might well 
be the Desire or Will of the spiritual entity 
which we ourselves are — that thinking, feel¬ 
ing, inmost essence of ourself, which is the 
“ noumenon ” of our individuality, and which, 
for the sake of brevity we call our " Ego,” a 
Latin word which simply means “ I myself.” 
This idea of spiritual impulse is quite familiar 



Some Psychic Experiences 39 

to us in our every-day talk. We speak of an 
impulsive person, meaning one who acts on a 
sudden thought without giving due heed to 
consequences; so in our ordinary speech we 
look upon thought as the initial impulse, only 
we restrict this to the case of unregulated 
thought. But if unregulated thought acts as 
a centre of impulse, why should not regulated 
thought do the same? Therefore we may ac¬ 
cept the idea of Thought as the initial im¬ 
pulse, which starts trains of waves in the Uni¬ 
versal Medium, whether with or without due 
consideration, and having thus recognized its 
dynamic power, we must learn to make the im¬ 
pulsions we thus send forth intelligent, well 
defined, and directed to some useful purpose. 
The operator at some wireless station does not 
use his' instruments to send out a lot of jum- 
bled-up waves into the ether, but controls the 
impulsions into a definite and intelligible order, 
and we must do the same. 

On some such lines as these, then, we may 
picture the desire of the Ego as starting a train 
of waves in the Universal Medium, which are 
reproduced in corresponding form on reaching 
their destination. As with the electro-mag¬ 
netic waves, they may spread all round, just 


40 The Law and the Word 

as ripples do if we throw a stone into a pond; 
but they will only take form where there is a 
correspondence able to receive them. This is 
what in the language of electrical engineers is 
called “ Syntony,” which means being tuned 
to the same rate of vibration, and no doubt it 
is from some such cause, that we sometimes 
experience what seem inexplicable feelings of 
attraction or repulsion towards different per¬ 
sons. This also appears to furnish a key to 
thought-transference, hypnotism, and other 
allied phenomena. 

If the reader questions whether thought is 
capable of generating impulses in the etheric 
medium I would refer him to the experiment 
mentioned in Chapter XIV of my “ Edinburgh 
Lectures on Mental Science,” where I describe 
how, when operating with Dr. Baraduc’s bio¬ 
meter, I found that the needle revolved through 
a smaller or large arc of the circle, in response 
to my mental intention of concentrating a 
smaller or larger degree of force upon it. Per¬ 
haps you will say that the difference in the 
movement of the needle depended on the quan¬ 
tity of magnetism that was flowing from me, to 
say nothing of other known forces, such as 
heat, light, electricity, etc. Well, that is pre- 


Some Psychic Experiences 41 

cisely the proposition I am putting forward. 
What caused the difference in the intensity of 
the magnetic flow was my intention of varying 
it, so that we come back to mental action as 
the centre of impulsion from which the etheric 
waves were generated. If, then, such a dem¬ 
onstration can be obtained on the plane of 
purely physical matter, why need we doubt 
that the same Law will work in the same way, 
in respect of those finer modes of substance, 
and wider ranges of etheric vibrations, which, 
starting from the basis of recognized physical 
science, the Law of Continuity would lead to 
by an orderly sequence, and which the occur¬ 
rence of what, for want of a better name, we 
call occult phenomena require for their expla¬ 
nation ? 

Before passing on to the more practical gen¬ 
eralizations to be drawn from the suggestions 
contained in this chapter, I may advert to an 
objection sometimes brought by the sceptical 
in this matter. They say: “ How is it that 

apparitions are always seen in the dark ? ” and 
then they answer their own question by say¬ 
ing, it is because superstitious people are nerv¬ 
ous in the dark and imagine all sorts of things. 
Then they laugh and think they have disposed 


42 The Law and the Word 

of the whole subject. But it is not disposed 
of quite so easily, for not only are there many 
well attested cases of such appearances in broad 
daylight, but there are also scientific facts, 
showing that if we are right in explaining such 
happenings by etheric action, such action is 
more readily produced at night than in the 
presence of sunlight. 

In the early part of 1902 Marconi made some 
experiments on board the American liner 
Philadelphia, which brought out the remarkable 
fact that, while it was possible to transmit sig¬ 
nals to a distance of fifteen hundred miles dur¬ 
ing the night, they could not be transmitted 
further than seven hundred miles during the 
day. The same was found to be the case by 
Lieutenant Solari of the Italian Navy, at whose 
disposal the ship Carlo Alberta was placed by 
the King of Italy in 1902, for the purpose of 
making investigations into wireless telegraphy ; 
and summing up the points which he considered 
to have been fully established by his experi¬ 
ments on board that ship, he mentions among 
them the fact, that sunlight has the effect of 
reducing the power of the electro-magnetic 
waves, and that consequently a greater force is 
required to produce a given result by day than 


Some Psychic Experiences 43 

by night. Here, then, is a reason why we 
might expect to see more supernatural appear¬ 
ances, as we call them, at night than in the day 
— they require a smaller amount of force to 
produce them. At the same time, it is found 
that the great magnetic waves which cover im¬ 
mense distances, work even more powerfully in 
the light than in the dark. May it not be that 
these things show, that there is more than a 
merely metaphorical use of words, when the 
Bible tells us of the power of Light to dissi¬ 
pate, and bring to naught, the powers of Dark¬ 
ness, while the Light itself is the Great Power, 
using the forces of the universe on the widest 
scale? Perhaps it is none other than the con¬ 
tinuity of unchanging universal principles 
extending into the mysterious realms of the 
spiritual world. 


CHAPTER III 


Man’s Place in the Creative Order 

In the preceding chapters we have found cer¬ 
tain definite facts,— that all known matter is 
formed out of one primordial Universal Sub¬ 
stance,— that the ether spreading throughout 
limitless space is a Universal Medium, through 
which it is possible to convey force by means of 
vibrations,— and that vibrations can be started 
by the power of Sound. These we have found 
to be well established facts of ordinary science, 
and taking them as our starting-point, we may 
now begin to speculate as to the possible work¬ 
ings of the known laws under unknown condi¬ 
tions. 

One of the first things that naturally attract 
our attention is the question,— How did Life 
originate? On this point I may quote two 
leading men of science. Tyndall says: “ I 

affirm that no shred of trustworthy experimen¬ 
tal testimony exists, to prove that life in our 
day has ever appeared independently of ante- 
44 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 45 

cedent life”; and Huxley says: “ The doc¬ 
trine of biogenesis, or life only from life, is 
victorious along the whole line at the present 
time.” Such is the testimony of modern 
science to the old maxim “ Omne vivum ex- 
vivo.” “ All life proceeds from antecedent 
life.” Think it out for yourself and you will 
see that it could not possibly be otherwise. 

Whatever may be our theory of the origin 
of life on the physical plane, whether we regard 
it as commencing in a vivified slime at the bot¬ 
tom of the sea, which we call protoplasm, or in 
any other way, the question of how life got 
there still remains unanswered. The proto¬ 
plasm being material substance, must have its 
origin like all other material substances, in the 
undifferentiated etheric Universal Substance, 
no particle of which has any power of operat¬ 
ing upon any other particle until some initial 
vibration starts the movement; so that, on any 
theory whatever, we are always brought back 
to the same question: What started the con¬ 
densation of the ether into the beginnings of a 
world-system? So whether we consider the 
life which characterizes organized matter, or 
the energy which characterizes inorganic mat¬ 
ter, we cannot avoid the conclusion, that both 


46 The Law and the Word 

must have their source in some Original Power 
to which we can assign no antecedent. This is 
the conclusion which has been reached by all 
philosophic and religious systems that have 
really tried to get at the root of the matter, 
simply because it is impossible to form any 
other conception. 

This Living Power is what we mean when 
we speak of the All-Originating Spirit. The 
existence of this Spirit is not a theological in¬ 
vention, but a logical and scientific ultimate, 
without predicating which, nothing else can be 
accounted for. The word “ Spirit ” comes 
from the Latin “ spiro ” “ I breathe,” and so 
means “ The Breath,” as in Job xxxiii, 4,— 
“ The Spirit of God hath made me, and the 
breath of the Almighty hath given me life”; 
and again in Ps. xxxiii, 6 —“ By the word 
of the Lord were the heavens made, and 
all the host of them by the breath of his 
mouth.” 

In the opening chapter of Genesis, we are 
told that “ the Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters.” The words rendered 
“the Spirit of God” are, in the original He¬ 
brew “ rouah ^Elohim,” which is literally “ the 
Breathing of God ”; and similarly, the ancient 



Man's Place in the Creative Order 47 

religious books of India, make the “ Swara ” 
or Great Breath the commencement of all life 
and energy. The word “ rouah ” in Genesis 
is remarkable. According to rabbinical teach¬ 
ing, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a 
certain symbolic significance, and when exam¬ 
ined in this manner, the root from which this 
word is derived conveys the idea of Expansive 
Movement. It is the opposite of the word 
“ hoshech,” translated “ darkness ” in the same 
passage of our Bible, which is similarly derived 
from a root conveying the idea of Hardening 
and Compressing. It is the same idea that is 
personified in the Zendavesta, the sacred book 
of the ancient Persians, under the names of 
Ormuzd, the Spirit of Light; and Ahriman, the 
Spirit of Darkness; and similarly in the old As¬ 
syrian myth of the struggle between the Sun- 
God and Tiamat, the goddess of darkness. 

This conception of conflict between two op¬ 
posite principles, Light and Darkness, Com¬ 
pression and Expansion, will be found to un¬ 
derlie all the ancient religions of the world, 
and it is conspicuous throughout our own 
Scriptures. But it should be borne in mind 
that the oppositeness of their nature does not 
necessarily mean conflict. The two principles 


48 


The Law and the Word 


of Expansion and Contraction are not neces¬ 
sarily destructive; on the contrary they are 
necessary correlatives to one another. Expan¬ 
sion alone cannot produce form; cohesion must 
also be present. It is the regulated balance be¬ 
tween them that results in Creation. In the old 
legend, if I remember rightly, the conflict is 
ended by Tiamat marrying her former oppo¬ 
nent. They were never really enemies, but 
there was a misunderstanding between them, or 
rather there was a misunderstanding on the 
part of Tiamat so long as she did not perceive 
the true character of the Spirit of Light, and 
that their relation to one another was that of 
co-operation and not of opposition. Thus also 
St. John tells us that “ the light shineth in 
darkness and the darkness comprehended it 
not” (John i, 5). It is this want of compre¬ 
hension that is at the root of all the trouble. 

The reader should note, however, that I am 
here speaking of that Primeval Substance, 
which necessarily has no light in itself, because 
there is as yet no vibration in it, for there can 
be no light without vibration. We must not 
make the mistake of supposing that Matter is 
evil in itself: it is our misconception of it that 
makes it the vehicle of evil; and we must dis- 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 49 

tinguish between the darkness of Matter and 
moral darkness, though there is a spiritual cor¬ 
respondence between them. The true develop¬ 
ment of Man consists in the self-expansion of 
the Divine Spirit working through his mind, 
and thence upon his psychic and physical or¬ 
ganisms, but this can only be by the individual's 
willingness to receive that Spirit. Where the 
hindrance to this working is only caused by 
ignorance of the true relation between our¬ 
selves and the Divine Spirit, and the desire for 
truth is present, the True Light will in due 
course disperse the darkness. But on the other 
hand, if the hindrance is caused by unwilling¬ 
ness to be led by the Divine Spirit, then the 
Light cannot be forced upon any one, and for 
this reason Jesus said: “ This is the condem¬ 

nation, that light is come into the World, and 
men loved darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds were evil. For every one that 
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to 
the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that 
his deeds may be made manifest, that they are 
wrought in God ” (John iii: 19-21). In phys¬ 
ical science these things have an exact parallel 
in “ Ohm’s Law ” regarding the resistance of- 




The Law and the Word 


50 

fered by the conductor to the flow of the elec¬ 
tric current. The correspondence is very 
remarkable and will be found more fully ex¬ 
plained in a later chapter. The Primary Dark¬ 
ness, both of Substance and of Mind, has to be 
taken into account, if we would form an in¬ 
telligent conception of the twofold process of 
Involution and Evolution continually at work 
in ourselves, which, by their combined action, 
are able to lead to the limitless development 
both of the individual and of the race. 

According to all teaching, then, both ancient 
and modern, all life and energy have their 
source in a Primary Life and Energy, of which 
we can only say that IT IS. We cannot con¬ 
ceive of any time when it was not, for, if there 
was a time when no such Primary Energizing 
Life existed, what was there to energize it? 
So we are landed in a reductio ad absurdiim 
which leaves no alternative but to predicate the 
Eternal Existence of an All-Originating Liv¬ 
ing Spirit. 

Let us stop for a moment to consider what 
we mean by “ Eternal.” When, do you sup¬ 
pose, twice two began to make four? And 
when, do you suppose, twice two will cease 
to make four? It is an eternal principle, quite 



Man's Place in the Creative Order 51 

independent of time or conditions. Similarly 
with the Originating Life. It is above time 
and above conditions — in a word it is undif¬ 
ferentiated and contains in itself the potential 
of infinite differentiation. This is what the 
Eternal Life is, and what we want for the ex¬ 
pansion of our own life is a truer comprehen¬ 
sion of it. We are like Tiamat, and must en¬ 
ter into intelligent and loving union with the 
Spirit of Light, in order to realize the infinite 
possibilities that lie before us. This is the ulti¬ 
mate meaning of the maxim “ Omne vivum ex 
vivo.” 

We see, then, that the material universe, in¬ 
cluding our own bodies, has its origin in the un¬ 
differentiated Universal Substance, and that 
the first movement towards differentiation must 
be started by some initial impulse, analogous 
to those which start vibrations in the ether 
known to science; and that therefore this im¬ 
pulse must, in the first instance, proceed from 
some Living Power eternal in itself, and inde¬ 
pendent of time and conditions. Now all the 
ancient religions of the world concur, in attrib¬ 
uting this initial impulse to the power of 
Sound; and we have seen, that as a matter of 
fact, sound has the power of starting vibra- 


52 


The Law and the Word 


tions, and that these vibrations have an exact 
correspondence with the quality of the sound, 
what we now call synchronous vibration. 

At this point, however, we are met by an¬ 
other fact. Cosmic activity takes place only 
in certain definite areas. Solar systems do not 
jostle each other in space. In a word the 
Sound, which thus starts the initial impulse of 
creation, is guided by Intelligent Selection. 
Now sounds, directed by purposeful intention, 
amount to Words, whether the words of some 
spoken language or the tapping of the Morse 
code — it is the meaning at the back of the 
sound that gives it verbal significance. It is 
for this reason, that the concentration of crea¬ 
tive energy in particular areas, has from time 
immemorial been attributed to “ The Word.” 
The old Sanskrit books call this selective con- 
centrative power “ Vach,” which means 
“ Voice,” and is the root of the Latin word 
“ Vox/’ having the same meaning. Philo, and 
the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria who follow 
him, call it “Logos,” which means the same; 
and we are all familiar with the opening verses 
of St. John’s Gospel and First Epistle in which 
he attributes Creation to “ The Word.” 

Now we know, as a scientific fact, that solar 





Man's Place in the Creative Order 53 

systems have a definite beginning in the gyra¬ 
tion of nebulous matter, circling through vast 
fields of interstellar space, as the great nebula 
in Andromeda does at the present day. ^Eons 
upon aeons elapse, before the primary nebula 
consolidates into a solar system such as ours 
is now; but science shows, that from the time 
when the nebula first spreads its spiral across 
the heavens, the mathematical element of Law 
asserts itself, and it is by means of our recog¬ 
nition of the mathematical relations between the 
forces of attraction and repulsion, that we have 
been able to acquire any knowledge on the sub¬ 
ject. I do not for an instant wish to suggest 
that the Spiritual Power has not continued to 
be in operation also, but a centre for the work¬ 
ing of a Cosmic Law being once established, 
the Spiritual Power works through that Law 
and not in opposition to it. On the other hand, 
the selection of particular portions of space for 
the manifestation of cosmic activity, indicates 
the action of free volition, not determined by 
any law except the obvious consideration of 
allowing room for the future solar system to 
move in. Similarly also with regard to time. 
Spectroscopic analysis of the light from the 
stars, which are suns many of them much 


54 The Law and the Word 

greater than our own, shows that they are of 
various ages — some quite young, some ar¬ 
rived at maturity, and some passing into old 
age. Their creation must therefore be as¬ 
signed to different epochs, and we thus see the 
Originating Spirit exercising the powers of 
Selection and Volition as to the time when, as 
well as to the place where, a new world-system 
shall be inaugurated. 

Now it is this power of inauguration that all 
the ancient systems of teaching attribute to the 
Divine Word. It is the passing of the undif¬ 
ferentiated into differentiation, of the unmani¬ 
fested into manifestation, of the unlocalized 
into localization. It is the ushering in of what 
the Brahminical books call a “ Manvantara ” 
or world-period, and in like manner our Bible 
says that “ In the beginning was the Word.” 
The English word “ word ” is closely allied to 
the Latin word “ verbum ” which signifies both 
word and verb. Grammarians tell us that the 
verb “ to be ” is a verb-substantive, that is, it 
does not indicate any action passing from the 
subject to the object. Now this exactly de¬ 
scribes the Spirit in its Eternity. We cannot 
conceive of It except as always BEING; but 
the distribution of world-systems both in time 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 55 

and space shows that it is not always cos- 
mically active. In itself, apart from manifes¬ 
tation, it is Pure Beingness, if I may coin such 
a word; and it is for this reason that the Di¬ 
vine Name announced to Moses was “ I AM.” 
But the fact that Creation exists, shows that 
from this Substantive Pure Being there flows 
out a Verb Active, which reproduces in action, 
what the I AM is in essence. It is just the 
same with ourselves. We must first he before 
we can do, and we can do only to the extent 
to which we are. We cannot express powers 
which we do not possess; so that our doing 
necessarily coincides with the quality of our 
being. Therefore the Divine Verb reproduces 
the Divine Substantive by a natural sequence. 
It is generated by the Divine “ I AM,” and for 
this reason it is called “ The Son of God.” 
So we see that The Verb, The Word, and The 
Son of God, are all different expressions for 
the same Power. 

Creative vibration in the Universal Sub¬ 
stance can, therefore, only be conceived of, as 
being inaugurated by the “ Word ” which 
localizes the activity of the Spirit in particular 
centres. This idea, of the localization of the 
Spirit through the “ Word,” should be fully 


56 


The Law and the Word 


realized as the energizing principle on the scale 
of the Macrocosm or “ Great World,” because, 
as we shall find later on, the same principle 
acts in the same way on the scale of the Mi¬ 
crocosm or “ Small World,” which is the in¬ 
dividual man. This is why these things have 
a personal interest for us, otherwise they would 
not be worth troubling about. But a mistake 
to be avoided at this point, is that of suppos¬ 
ing that the “ Word ” is something which dic¬ 
tates to the Spirit when and where to operate. 
The “ Word ” is the word of the Spirit itself, 
and not that of some higher authority, for the 
Spirit being First Cause there can be nothing 
anterior to dictate to it; there can be nothing 
before that which is First. The “ Word ” 
which centralizes the activity of the Spirit, is 
therefore that of the Spirit itself. We have 
an analogy in our own case. If I go to New 
York the first movement in that direction is 
that of my Thought or Desire. It is true that 
in my present state of evolution I have to fol¬ 
low the usual methods of travel, but so far as 
my Thought is concerned, I have been there all 
the time. Indeed, such a case as the one I have 
mentioned, of my being seen in Edinburgh 
while I was physically in London, seems to 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 57 

point to the actual transference of some part 
of the personality to another locality, and simi¬ 
larly with my visit to Lanercost Abbey; and 
the reader must remember, that such phenom¬ 
ena are by no means uncommon — they are 
the natural action of some part of our per¬ 
sonality, and must therefore follow some nat¬ 
ural law, even though we may at present know 
very little of how it works. 

We see, therefore, both from a priori rea¬ 
soning, and from observed facts, that it is the 
Word, Thought, or Desire of the Spirit, that 
localizes its activity in some definite centre. 
The student should bear this in mind as a 
leading principle, for he will find that it is of 
general application, alike in the case of in¬ 
dividuals, of groups of individuals, and of 
entire nations. It is the key to the relation 
between Law and Personality, the opening of 
the Grand Arcanum, the equilibrating of 
Jachin and Boaz, and it is therefore of immedi¬ 
ate importance to ourselves. 

We may take, then, as a starting-point for 
further enquiry, the maxim that Volition cre¬ 
ates Centres of Spiritual Activity. But per¬ 
haps you will say: “ If this be true, what 
word or words am I to employ ? ” This is a 


58 The Law and the Word 

question which has puzzled a good many peo¬ 
ple before you. This “ Word ” which so 
many have been in search of, has been vari¬ 
ously called “ the Lost Word,” “ the Word of 
Power,” “ the Schemhammaphorasch or Se¬ 
cret Name of God,” and so on. A quaint Jew¬ 
ish legend of the Middle Ages says that the 
“ Hidden Name ” was secretly inscribed in the 
innermost recesses of the Temple; but that, 
even if discovered, which was most unlikely, 
it could not be retained because, guarding it, 
were sculptured lions, which gave such a super¬ 
natural roar as the intruder was quitting the 
spot, that all memory of the “ Hidden Name ” 
was driven from his mind. Jesus, however, 
says the legend, knew this and dodged the 
lions. He transcribed the Name, and cutting 
open his thigh, hid the writing in the incision, 
which, by magical art, he at once closed up; 
then, after leaving the Temple, he took the 
writing out and so retained the knowledge of 
the Name. In this way the legend accounts 
for his power to work miracles. 

Jesus, indeed, possessed the Word of Power, 
though not in the way told in the legend, and 
he repeatedly proclaimed it in his teaching: 
—“ According to your Faith be it unto you ” 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 59 

—“ Verily, I say unto you, whosoever shall 
say to this mountain, ‘ Be thou taken up and 
cast into the sea ’; and shall not doubt in his 
heart, but shall believe that what he saith shall 
come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he 
saith ” (Mark xi, 23). And similarly in the 
Old Testament we are told that the Word is 
nigh to us, even in our hearts and in our mouth 
(Deut. xxx, 14). What keeps the Word of 
Power hidden, is our belief that nothing so 
simple could possibly be it. 

At the same time, simple though it be, it has 
Law and Reason at the back of it, like every¬ 
thing else. The ancient Egyptians seem to 
have had clearer ideas on this subject than 
we have. “ The name was to the Egyptians 
the idea of the thing, without which it could 
not exist, and the knowledge of which there¬ 
fore gave power over that which answered to 
it.” “ The idea of the thing represented its 
soul ." 1 This is the same conception as the 
“ archetypal ideas ” of Plato, only carried fur¬ 
ther, so as to apply, not only to classes, but to 
each individual of the class, and, as we shall 
see later, there is a good deal of truth in it. 

1 “ Out of Egypt ” by Miss Crouse. Gorham Press, 
Boston, U. S. A. 




6o 


The Law and the Word 


Put broadly, the conception is this — every ex¬ 
ternal fact must have a spiritual origin, an in¬ 
ternal energizing principle, which causes it to 
exist in the particular form in which it does. 
The outward fact is called the Phenomenon, 
and the corresponding inward principle is called 
the Noumenon. The dictionary definition of 
these two words is as follows: “ Phenomenon 

— the appearance which anything makes to 
our consciousness as distinguished from what 
it is in itself.” “ Noumenon — an unknown 
and unknowable substance or thing as it is in 
itself — the opposite to the Phenomenon or 
form through which it becomes known to the 
senses or the understanding” (Chambers’ 
Twentieth Century Dictionary). Whether the 
dictionary be right in saying that the “nou- 
mena ” of things are entirely unknowable, the 
reader must decide for himself; but the pres¬ 
ent book is an attempt to learn something about 
the “ noumena ” of things in general, and of 
ourselves in particular, and what I want to 
convey is, that the “ noumenon ” of anything 
is its essence, in terms of the Universal Energy 
and the Universal Substance, in their relation 
to the particular Form in question. Probably 
the Latin word “ Nomen,” a Name, derived 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 6j 

from this Greek word, and in this sense every¬ 
thing has its “ hidden name ”; and the region 
in which Thought-Power works, is this region 
of spiritual beginnings. It deals with “ hidden 
names ”— that inward essence which deter¬ 
mines the outward form of things, persons, 
and circumstances alike; and it is in order to 
make this clearer, that I have commenced by 
sketching briefly the general principles of Sub¬ 
stance and Energy as now recognized by mod¬ 
ern science. 

If I have made my meaning clear, you will 
see that what is wanted is not the knowledge 
of particular words, but an understanding of 
general principles. At the same time I would 
not assert that the reciting of certain forms of 
words, such as the Indian “ mantras ” or the 
word AUM, to which Oriental teachers attach 
a mystic significance, is entirely without power. 
But the power is not in the words hut in our 
belief in their pozver. I will give an amusing 
instance of this. On several occasions I have 
been consulted by persons who supposed them- . 
selves to be under the influence of “ malicious 
magnetism/’ emanating in some cases from 
known, and in others from unknown, sources; 
and the remedy I have prescribed has been this. 


62 The Law and the Word 

Look the adverse power, mentally, full in the 
face, and then assuming an attitude of confi¬ 
dence say “ Cock-a-doodle-doo/' The en¬ 
quirers have sometimes smiled at first, but in 
every case the result has been successful. Per¬ 
haps this is why /Esculapius is represented as 
accompanied by a cock. Possibly the ancient 
physicians were in the habit of employing the 
“ Cock-a-doodle-doo ” treatment; and I might 
recommend it to the faculty to-day as very ef¬ 
fective in certain cases. Now I do not think 
the reader will attribute any particularly occult 
significance to “ Cock-a-doodle-doo." The 
power is in the mental attitude. To “ cock-a- 
doodle-doo ” at any suggestion is to treat it 
with scorn and derision, and to assume the 
very opposite of that receptive attitude which 
enables a suggestion to affect us. That is the 
secret of this method of treatment, and the 
principle is the same in all cases. 

It matters, then, very little what particular 
words we use. What does matter is the inten¬ 
tion and faith with which we use them. But 
perhaps some reader will here take the role of 
cross-examining counsel, and say: “You 
have just said it is a case of synchronous vibra¬ 
tion — then surely it is the actual sound of the 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 63 

particular syllables that counts — how do you 
square this with your present statement? ” The 
answer is that the Law is always the same, but 
the mode of response to the Law is always ac¬ 
cording to the nature of the medium in which 
it is operating. On the plane of physical mat¬ 
ter the vibrations are in tune with physical 
sounds, as in the experiments with the eido- 
phone; and similarly, on the plane of ideas or 
“ noumena,” the response is in terms of that 
plane. The word which creates “ noumena,” 
or spiritual centres of action, must itself be¬ 
long to the world of “ noumena, ,, so that it is 
not illogical to say that it is the intention and 
faith that counts, and not the external sound. 
In this is the secret of the Power of Thought. 
It is the reproduction, on the miniature scale 
of the individual, of the same mode of Power 
that makes the worlds. It is that Power of 
Personality, which, combined with the action 
of the Law, brings out results which the Law 
alone could never do — as the old maxim has 
it, “ Nature unaided fails.” 

This brings us to another important ques¬ 
tion — is not the creative power of the Word 
limited by the immutability of the Law? If 
the Law cannot be altered in the least particu- 


64 The Law and the Word 

lar, how can the Word be free to do what it 
likes ? The answer to this is contained in an¬ 
other maxim: “ Every creation carries its 

own mathematics along with it.” You cannot 
create anything without at the same time cre¬ 
ating its relation to everything else, just as in 
painting a landscape, the contour you give to 
the trees will determine that of the sky. There¬ 
fore, whenever you create anything, you 
thereby start a train of causation, which will 
work out in strict accordance with the sort of 
thought that started it. The stream always 
has the quality of its source. Thought which 
is in line with the Unity of the Great Whole, 
will produce correspondingly harmonious re¬ 
sults, and Thought which is disruptive of the 
great Principle of Unity, will produce corre¬ 
spondingly disputive results — hence all the 
trouble and confusion in the world. Our 
Thought is perfectly free, and we can use it 
either constructively or destructively as we 
choose; but the immutable Law of Sequence 
will not permit us to plant a thought of one 
kind, and make it bear fruit of another. 

Then the question very naturally suggests 
itself: Why did not God create us so that 
we could not think negative or destructive 



Man's Place in the Creative Order 65 

thoughts? And the answer is: Because He 
could not. There are some things which even 
God cannot do. He cannot do anything that 
involves a contradiction in terms. Even God 
could not make twice two either more or less 
than four. Now I want the student to see 
clearly why making us incapable of wrong¬ 
thinking would involve a contradiction in 
terms, and would therefore be an impossibility. 
To see this we must realize what is our place 
in the Order of the Universe. The name 
“ Man ” itself indicates this. It comes from 
the Sanscrit root MN, which, in all its deriva¬ 
tives, conveys the idea of Measurement, as in 
the word Mind, through the Latin mens, the 
faculty which compares things and estimates 
them accordingly; Moon, the heavenly body 
whose phases afford the most obvious standard 
for the periodical measurement of time; Month, 
the period thus measured; “ Man,” the largest 
of the Indian weights; and so on. Man there¬ 
fore means “The Measurer,” and this very 
aptly describes our place in the order of evolu¬ 
tion, for it indicates the relation between Per¬ 
sonal Volition and Immutable Law. 

If we grant the truth of the maxim “ Na¬ 
ture unaided fails 99 the whole thing becomes 



66 


The Law and the Word 


clear, and the entire progress of applied sci¬ 
ence proves the truth of this maxim. To re¬ 
cur to an illustration I have employed in my 
previous books, the old ship-builders thought 
that ships were bound to be built of wood and 
not of iron, because wood floats in water and 
iron sinks; but now nearly all ships are made 
of iron. Yet the specific gravities of wood 
and iron have not altered, and a log of wood 
floats while a lump of iron sinks, just the same 
as they did in the days of Drake and Frobisher. 
The only difference i£~that people thought out 
the underlying principle of the law of flotation, 
and reduced it to the generalized statement that 
anything will float, the weight of which is less 
than that of the mass displaced by it, 
whether it be an iron ship floating in water, or 
a balloon floating in air. So long as we re¬ 
strict ourselves to the mere recollection of ob¬ 
served facts, we shall make no progress; but 
by carefully considering why any force acted 
in the way it did, under the particular condi¬ 
tions observed, we arrive at a generalization of 
principle, showing that the force in question 
is capable of hitherto unexpected applications 
if we provide the necessary conditions. This 
is the way in which all advances have been 




Man's Place in the Creative Order 67 

made on the material side, and on the princi¬ 
ple of Continuity we may reasonably infer that 
the same applies to the spiritual side also* 
We may generalize the whole position thus. 
When we first observe the working of the Law 
under the conditions spontaneously provided 
by Nature, it appears to limit us; but by seek¬ 
ing the reason of the action exhibited under 
these limited conditions, we discover the prin¬ 
ciple, and true nature, of the Law in question, 
and we then learn from the Law itself, what 
conditions to supply in order to give it more 
extended scope, and direct its energy to the 
accomplishment of definite purposes. The 
maxim we have to learn is that “ Every Law 
contains in itself the principle of its own Ex¬ 
pansion,” which will set us free from the limi¬ 
tation which that Law at first appeared to im¬ 
pose upon us. The limitation was never in 
the Law, but in the conditions under which it 
was working, and our power of selection and 
volition enables us to provide new conditions, 
not spontaneously provided by Nature, and 
thus to specialize the Law, and disclose im¬ 
mense powers which had always been latent in 
it, but which would for ever remain hidden 
unless brought to light by the co-operation of 




68 


The Law and the Word 


the Personal Factor. The Law itself never 
changes, but we can specialize it by realizing 
the principle involved and providing the condi¬ 
tions thus indicated. This is our place in the 
Order of the Universe. We give definite di¬ 
rection to the action of the Law, and in this 
way our Personal Factor is always acting upon 
the law, whether we know it or not; and the 
Law, under the influence thus impressed upon 
it, is all the time re-acting upon us. 

Now we cannot conceive any limit to Evolu¬ 
tion. To suppose a point where it comes to 
an end is a contradiction in terms. It is to 
suppose that the Eternal Life Principle is used 
up, which is to deny its Eternity; and, as we 
have seen, unless we assume its Eternity, it is 
impossible to account either for our own ex¬ 
istence or that of anything else. Therefore, 
to say that a point will ever be reached where 
it will be used up, is as absurd as saying that 
a point will be reached where the sequence 
of numbers will be used up. Evolution, the 
progress from lower to higher modes of mani¬ 
festation of the underlying Principle of Life, 
is therefore eternal, but, in regard to the hu¬ 
man race, this progress depends entirely on 
the extent to which we grasp the principles of 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 69 

the Law of our own Being, and so learn to 
specialize it in the right direction. Then if 
this be our place in the Universal Order, it be¬ 
comes clear that we could not occupy this place 
unless we had a perfectly free hand to choose 
the conditions under which the Law is to oper¬ 
ate; and therefore, in order to pass beyond the 
limits of the mineral, vegetable and animal 
kingdoms, and reach the status of being Per¬ 
sons, and not things, we must have a freedom 
of selection and volition, which makes it 
equally possible for us to select either rightly 
or wrongly; and the purpose of sound teach¬ 
ing is to make us see the eternal principles in¬ 
volved, and thus lead us to impress our Per¬ 
sonality upon the Law, in the way that will 
bring out the infinite possibilities of good which 
the Law, rightly employed, contains. If it 
were possible to do this by an automatic Law, 
doubtless the Creative Wisdom would have 
made us so. This is why St. Paul says: “ If 
there had been a law given which could have 
given life, verily righteousness should have 
been by the law” (Gal. iii, 21). Note the 
words “ a law given," that is to say, imposed 
by external command; but it could not be. 
The laws of the Universe are Cosmic. In 


yo The Law and the Word 

themselves they are impersonal, and the infinite 
possibilities contained in them, can only be 
brought out by the co-operation of the Personal 
Factor. It is only as we grasp the true rela¬ 
tion between Jachin and Boaz, that we can en¬ 
ter into the Temple either of our own Indi¬ 
viduality, or of the boundless Universe in 
which we live. The reason, therefore, why 
God did not make us mechanically incapable 
of wrong thinking, is simply because the very 
idea involves a contradiction in terms, which 
negatives all possibility of Creation. The con¬ 
ception lands us in a rednctio ad absurdum. 

Therefore, we are free to use our powers of 
Personality as we will, only we must take the 
consequences. Now one error we are all very 
apt to fall into, is the mistaken use of the Will. 
Its proper function is to keep our other facul¬ 
ties in line with the Law, and thus enable us 
to specialize it; but many people seem to think 
that by force of will they can somehow man¬ 
age to coerce the Law; in other words, that 
by force of will they can sow a seed of one 
kind and make it bear fruit of another. The 
Spirit of Life seeks to express itself in our 
individuality, through the three avenues of 
reason, feeling, and will; but as in the Masonic 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 71 

legend of the murder of Hiram Abif, the archi¬ 
tect of Solomon’s Temple, it is beaten back on 
the side of reasoning, by the plummet of a 
logic based on false premises; on the side of 
feeling, by the level of conventional ideas; and 
on the side of will, by the hammer of a short¬ 
sighted self-will, which gives the finishing 
blow; and it is not until the true perception of 
the Principle of Life is resurrected within us, 
that the Temple can be completed according to 
the true plan. 

It should be remembered that the will is not 
the Creative Faculty in us. It is the faculty of 
Conception that is the creative agent, and the 
business of the Will is to keep that faculty in 
the right direction, which will be determined by 
an enlightened Reason. Conception creates 
ideas which are the seed, that, in due time, will 
produce fruit after its own kind. In a broad 
sense we may call it the Imaging Faculty, only 
we must not suppose that this necessarily im¬ 
plies the visualizing of mental images, which 
is only a subsidiary mode of using this faculty. 
An “ immaculate conception ” is therefore the 
only means by which the New Liberated Man 
can be born in each of us. The sequence is 
always the same. The Will holds the Con- 


72 The Law and the Word 

ception together, and the idea thus, formed 
gives direction to the working of the Law. But 
this direction may be either true or inverted; 
and the impersonal Law will work construc¬ 
tively or destructively, according to the con¬ 
ception which it embodies. In this way, then, 
will-power may be used to hold together an in¬ 
verted conception — the conception that our 
personal force of will is sufficient to bear down 
all opposition. But this mental attitude ig¬ 
nores the fact, that the fundamental principle 
of creative power is the Wholeness of the Crea¬ 
tion; and that, therefore, the idea of forcing 
compliance with our wishes, by the power of 
our individual will, is an inverted conception, 
which, though it may appear to succeed for a 
time, is bound to fail eventually, because it an¬ 
tagonizes the very power it is seeking to use. 
This inverted use of the Will is the basis of 
“ Black Magic/’ a term some readers will per¬ 
haps smile at, but which is practised at the 
present day to a much greater extent than many 
of us have any idea of — not always, indeed, 
with a full consciousness of its nature, but in 
many ways which are the first steps on the 
Left-hand Path. Its mark is the determina¬ 
tion to act by Self-will, rather than using our 


Man's Place in the Creative Order 73 

will to co-operate with that continuous forward 
movement of the Great Whole, which is the 
Will of God. This inverted will entirely 
misses the point regarding the part we are 
formed to play in the Creative Order, and so 
we miss the development of our own individ¬ 
uality, and retrograde instead of going for¬ 
ward. 

But if we work with the Law instead of 
against it, we shall find that our word, that is 
to say our conception, will become more and 
more the Word of Power, because it special¬ 
izes the general Law in some particular direc¬ 
tion. The Law will serve us exactly to the ex¬ 
tent to which we first observe the Law. It is 
the same in everything. If the electrician tries 
to go counter to the fundamental principle, that 
the electric current always flows from a higher 
to a lower potential, he will be able to do noth¬ 
ing with it; but let him observe this funda¬ 
mental law and there is nothing that electricity 
will not do for him within the field of its own 
nature. In this sense, then, of specializing 
the general Law in a particular direction, we 
may lay down the maxim that “ The Law flows 
from the Word, and not vice versa." 

When we use our Word in this way, not as 


74 


The Law and the Word 


expressing a self-will that seeks to crush all 
that does not submit to it, but as a portion, 
however small, of the Universal Cause, and 
therefore with the desire of acting in harmony 
with that Cause, then our word becomes a con¬ 
structive, instead of a destructive power. Its 
influence may be very small at first, because 
there is still a great mass of doubt at the back 
of our mind, and every doubt is, in reality, a 
Negative Word warring against our Affirma¬ 
tive Word; but, by adhering to our principle, 
we shall gradually gain experience in these 
things, and the creative value of our word will 
grow accordingly. 


CHAPTER IV 


The Law of Wholeness 

It may seem a truism to say that the whole is 
made up of its parts, but all the same we often 
lose sight of this in our outlook on life. 

The reason we do so is because we are apt 
to take too narrow a view of the whole; and 
also because we do not sufficiently consider 
that it is not the mere arithmetical sum of the 
parts that makes the whole, but also the har¬ 
monious agreement of each part with all the 
other parts. The extent of the whole and the 
harmony of the parts is what we have to look 
out for, and also its objective; this is a uni¬ 
versal rule, whatever the whole in question may 
be. 

Take, for instance, the case of the artist. 
He must start by having a definite objective, 
what in studio phrase is called a “ motif 
something that has given him a certain im¬ 
pression which he wants to convey to others, 
but which cannot be stated as an isolated fact 
75 


76 


The Law and the Word 


without any surroundings. Then the sur¬ 
roundings must be painted so as to have a 
natural relation to the main motif; they must 
lead up to it, but at the same time they must 
not compete with it. There must be only one 
definite interest in the picture, and minor de¬ 
tails must not be allowed to interfere with it. 
They ai;e there only because of the main motif, 
to help to express it. Yet they are not to be 
treated in a slovenly manner. As much as is 
seen of them must be drawn with an accuracy 
that correctly suggests their individual char¬ 
acter ; but they must not be accentuated in such 
a way as to emphasize details to the detriment 
of the breadth of the picture. This is the ar¬ 
tistic principle of unity, and the same princi¬ 
ple applies to everything else. 

What, then, is the “ Motif ” of Life ? Surely 
it must be, to express its own Livingness. 
Then in the True Order all modes of life and 
energy must converge towards this end, and 
it is only our short-sightedness that prevents us 
from seeing this,— from seeing that the 
greater the harmony of the whole Life, the 
greater will be the inflow of that Life in each 
of the parts that are giving it expression. This 
is what we want to learn with regard to our- 


The Law of Wholeness 77 

selves, whether as individuals, classes or na¬ 
tions. We have seen the cosmic workings of 
the Law of Wholeness in the discovery of the 
planet Neptune. Another planet was abso¬ 
lutely necessary to complete the unity of our 
solar system, and it was found that there is 
such a planet, and similarly in other branches 
of natural science. The Law of Unity is the 
basic law of Life, and it is our ignorant or 
wilful infraction of this Law that is the root 
of all our troubles. 

If we take this Law of Unity as the basis of 
our Thought we shall be surprised to find how 
far it will carry us. Each part is a complete 
whole in itself. Each inconceivably minute 
particle revolves round the centre of the atom 
in its own orbit. On its own scale it is com¬ 
plete in itself, and by co-operation with thou¬ 
sands of others forms the atom. The atom 
again is a complete whole, but it must combine 
with other atoms to form a molecule, and so 
on. But if the atom be imperfect as an atom, 
how could it combine with other atoms? 

Thus we see that however infinitesimal any 
part may be as compared with the whole, it 
must also be a complete whole on its own scale, 
if the greater whole is to be built up. On the 


78 


The Law and the Word 


same principle, our recognition that our per¬ 
sonality is an infinitesimal fraction of an in¬ 
conceivably greater Life, does not mean that 
it is at all insignificant in itself, or that our 
individuality becomes submerged in an indis¬ 
tinguishable mass; on the contrary, our own 
wholeness is an essential factor towards the 
building up of the greater whole; so that as 
long as we keep before us the building up of 
the Great Whole as the “ main motif,” we need 
never fear the expansion of our own individ¬ 
uality. The more we expand, the more effec¬ 
tive units we shall become. 

We must not, however, suppose that Unity 
means Uniformity. St. Paul puts this very 
clearly when he says, if the whole body be 
an eye, where would be the hearing, etc. (I 
Cor. xii, 14). How could you paint a picture 
without distinction of form, colour, or tone? 
Diversity in Unity is the necessity for any sort 
of expression, and if it be the case in our own 
bodies, as St. Paul points out, how much more 
so in the expressing of the Eternal Life 
through endless ages and limitless space! Once 
we grasp this idea of the unity and progressive¬ 
ness of Life going on ad infinitum, what bound¬ 
less vistas of possibility open before us. It 


The Law of Wholeness 79 

would be enough to stagger the imagination 
were it not for our old friends, the Law and 
the Word. But these will always accompany 
us, and we may rely upon them in all worlds 
and under all conditions. This Law of Unity 
is what in natural science is known as the Law 
of Continuity, and the Ancient Wisdom has 
embodied it in the Hermetic axiom “ Sicut 
superius, sicut inferius; sicut inferius, sicut 
superius ”—As above, so below; as below, so 
above. It leads us on from stage to stage, un¬ 
folding as it goes; and to this unfolding there 
is no end, for it is the Eternal Life finding 
ever fuller expression, as it can find more and 
more suitable channels through which to ex¬ 
press itself. It can no more come to an end 
than numbers can come to an end. 

But it must find suitable channels. Let 
there be no mistake about this. Perhaps some 
one may say: Cannot it make suitable chan¬ 
nels for any sort of expression that it needs? 
The answer is, that it can, and it does so up to 
a certain point. As we have seen, the Word, 
Thought, or Initial Impulse of the Ever-Liv¬ 
ing Spirit starts a centre of cosmic activity in 
which the mathematical element of Law at 
once asserts itself'; thenceforward everything 


8o The Law and the Word 

goes on according to certain broad principles 
of sequence. This is a Generic Creation, crea¬ 
tion according to genera or classes, like the 
“ archetypal ideas ” of Plato. This creation 
is governed by a Law of Averages, and the 
legal maxim “ De minimis non curat lex ”— 
the Law cannot trouble about minorities — ap¬ 
plies to it. This generic law keeps the class 
going, and slowly advancing, simply as a class, 
but it can take no notice of individuals as such. 
As Tennyson puts it in “ In Memoriam, ,, 
speaking of Nature: 

“ So careful of the type she seems, 

So careless of the single life.” 

This mode of creation reaches its highest 
level, at any rate in our world, in Genus Homo, 
or the human race. We also, as a race, are 
under the Law of Averages. The race con¬ 
tinues to exist, but from the moment of birth 
the individual life is liable to be cut short in 
a hundred different ways. In producing man, 
however, Generic Creation has produced a type 
having a mental and physical constitution ca¬ 
pable of perceiving the underlying principle of 
all creation, that is, of seeing the relation be¬ 
tween the Word and the Law. We cannot con- 


The Law of Wholeness 81 

ceive creation by type going further than this. 
By the nature of this type every human being 
has the potential of a further evolution, which 
will set it free from bondage to an impersonal 
Law of Averages, by specializing it through 
the Power of the Word, that is, by bringing 
the Personal Factor to bear upon the Imper¬ 
sonal Factor, and so unfolding the possibilities 
which can be achieved by their united activi¬ 
ties. We have the power of using the Word 
so as to specialize the action of the Law, not 
by altering the Law, which is impossible, but 
by realizing its principle, and enabling it to 
work under conditions which are not spon¬ 
taneously provided by Nature, but are pro¬ 
vided by our own selection. The capacity for 
this exists in all human beings, but the prac¬ 
tical application of this capacity depends on 
our recognition of the principles involved; and 
it is for this reason that I commenced this 
book by citing instances of the combined work¬ 
ing of Law and Personality in purely physical 
science. I wanted first to convince the reader 
from well ascertained facts, that the Law con¬ 
tains infinite possibilities, but that this can only 
be brought out through the operation of the 
mind of man. 


82 


The Law and the Word 


It is here that we find the value of the maxim 
“ Nature unaided fails.” The more we con¬ 
sider this maxim and the principle of Unity 
and Continuity, the clearer it will become, that 
Limitation is no part of the Law itself, but 
results only from our own limited comprehen¬ 
sion of it; and that St. James uses no meaning¬ 
less phrase, but is stating a logical and scien¬ 
tific truth, when he speaks of “ The perfect 
Law of Liberty ” (Jas. i, 25). What we have 
to do is, to follow this up, not by petulant 
self-assertion, but by quietly considering the 
why and wherefore of the whole thing. In 
doing so we can fortify ourselves with another 
maxim, that “ Principle is not limited by Prece¬ 
dent.” When we spread the wings of thought 
and speculate as to future possibilities, our 
conventionally-minded friends may say we are 
talking bosh; but if you ask them why they 
say so, they can only reply that the past ex¬ 
perience of the whole human race is against 
you. They do not speak like this in the mat¬ 
ter of flying-machines or carriages that go 
without horses; they say these are scientific 
discoveries. But when it comes to the possi¬ 
bilities of our own souls, they at once set a 
limit to the expansion of ideas, and do not see 


The Law of Wholeness 83 

that the scientific principle of discovery is not 
confined to laboratory experiments. There¬ 
fore, we must not let ourselves be discouraged 
by such arguments. If our friends doubt our 
sanity, let them doubt it. The sanity of such 
men as Galileo and George Stephenson was 
doubted by their contemporaries, so we are in 
good company. At the same time we must not 
neglect to look after our own sanity. We must 
know some intelligible reason for our conclu¬ 
sions, and realize that however unexpected, 
they are the logical carrying out of principles 
which we can recognize in the Creation around 
us. If we do this we need not fear to spread 
the wings of fancy, even though some may 
not be able to accompany us; only we must re¬ 
member that we are using wings. Fancy, in 
the ordinary acceptation of the word, has 
really no wings; it is like a balloon that just 
floats wherever any passing current of air may 
drive it. The possession of wings implies 
power to direct our flight, and fancy must be 
converted into trained Imagination, just as the 
helpless balloon has been superseded by navi¬ 
gable air-craft. It must be “ the scientific im¬ 
agination ”; and the “ scientific imagination ” 
carried into the world of spiritual causation 



8 4 


The Law and the Word 


becomes the Word of Power, and its Power is 
derived from the fact that it is always work¬ 
ing according to Law. Then we may go on 
confidently, because we are following the same 
universal principles by which all creation has 
been evolved, only now we are specializing its 
action from the standpoint of our own indi¬ 
viduality, according to the ancient teaching that 
Man, the Microcosm, repeats in himself all the 
laws of the Macrocosm, or great world, around 
him. 

As we be'gin to see the truth of these things, 
we begin to transcend the simply generic stage. 
That first stage is necessary to provide a start¬ 
ing-point for the next. The first stage is that 
of Bondage to Law. It could not be other¬ 
wise for the simple reason that you must learn 
the law before you can use it. Then from the 
Stage of Generic Creation we emerge into that 
of individual Creation, in which we attain lib¬ 
erty through Knowledge of the Law of our 
own Being; so that it is not a mere theological 
myth to talk of a New Creation, but it is the 
logical outcome of what we now are, if, to our 
recognition of the Power of the Law we add 
the recognition of the Power of the Word. 


CHAPTER V 


The Soul of the Subject 

We may now turn to speculate a little on some 
conceivable application of the general princi¬ 
ple we have been considering. It seems to 
me that, as a result of the generic creation of 
which I have just spoken, there is in everything 
what, for want of a better name, I may call 
“The soul of the subject.” 

Creation being by type, everything must 
have a generic basis of being in the Cosmic 
Law, not peculiar to that individual thing, but 
peculiar to the class to which it belongs, an 
adaptation of the Cosmic Soul for the pro¬ 
duction of all things belonging to that par¬ 
ticular order, in fact, what makes them what 
they are and not something else. Now just 
because this basis is generic and common to 
the whole genus that is built upon it, it is not 
specific, but it acquires localization through 
Form; the form being that of the class to which 
it belongs, thus producing the individual of 
8 s 


86 


The Law and the Word 


that class, whether a cat or a cabbage. It is 
this underlying generic being of the thing, that 
I want the student to understand by “ the soul 
of the subject.” In fact we may call it the 
Noumenon or essential being of the class, as 
distinguished from the specific characteristics 
that differentiate the individual from others of 
the same class. It follows from this that this 
generic soul has no individuality of its own, 
and consequently is open to receive impressions 
from any source that can penetrate the sheath 
of outward form and specific characteristic 
that envelopes it. At the same time it is a 
manifestation of Cosmic Law, and so cannot 
depart from its own class-nature, and there¬ 
fore any influence that may be impressed upon 
it from some other source will always show 
itself in terms of the sort of generic soul that 
is thus impressed; for instance, it would be im¬ 
possible so to impress a dog as to make it write 
a book; and we may therefore generalize the 
statement, and lay down the rule, that “ Every 
impress receives ^pression in terms of the 
medium through which it is expressed. This 
becomes almost a self-obvious truism when 
put into plain language like this; thus, if I 
paint a picture in oils, my impression is con- 


The Soul of the Subject 87 

veyed in terms of this medium, and if I paint 
one in water-colours my conception will be con¬ 
veyed in terms of that medium, and the meth¬ 
ods of handling will be perfectly different in 
the two pictures. 

This applies all round; and if we keep this 
generalization in mind, it will render many 
things clear, especially in psychic matters, 
which would otherwise seem puzzling. 

Now we ourselves are included in the gen¬ 
eral creation, and consequently we have in us 
a generic or type basis of personality, which is 
entirely impersonal. This is not a contradic¬ 
tion in terms, though it may look like one. We 
belong to the class Genus Homo, the distinctive 
quality of which is Personality, that is to say, 
the possession of certain faculties which con¬ 
stitute us persons, and not things or animals; 
but at the same time this merely generic per¬ 
sonality is common to all mankind, and is not 
that which distinguishes one individual from 
another, and in this sense it is impersonal; so 
we may call it our Cosmic or Impersonal Per¬ 
sonality. 

Now it is upon this cosmic element, inherent 
in all things from mineral to man, that 
Thought-Power acts, because, being imper- 


88 


The Law and the Word 


sonal, it has no private purpose of its own with 
which to oppose the suggestion that is being im¬ 
pressed upon it. The only thing is, that ac¬ 
cording to the rule just laid down, the response 
will always be in terms of the cosmic element 
which we have thus set in motion. Therefore 
on the human plane it will always be in terms 
of Personality. 

The whole thing comes to this, that we im¬ 
part to this impersonal element the reflection 
of our own personality, and thereby create in 
it a certain personality of its own, which will 
express itself in terms of the inherent nature 
of the impersonal factor, which we have thus 
temporarily invested with a personal quality; 
we are continually doing this unconsciously, 
either for good or ill; but when we come to 
understand the law of it, we must try so to 
regulate the habitual current of our thoughts, 
that even when we are not using this power in¬ 
tentionally, they may only exercise a beneficial 
influence. 

In our normal state this cosmic element in 
ourselves is so closely united with our more 
conscious powers of volition and reasoning, 
that they constitute a single unity; and this is 
how it should be, only, as we shall see later 


The Soul of the Subject 


89 


on, with a difference. But there are certain 
abnormal states which are worth considering, 
because they make clearer the existence in us 
of this impersonal self, which in academical 
language is called the subliminal consciousness. 
The work of the subliminal consciousness ex¬ 
hibits itself in various ways, such as clairvoy¬ 
ance, clair-audience, and conditions of trance; 
all of which either occur spontaneously, or are 
induced by experimental means, such as hypno¬ 
tism; but the similarity of the phenomena in 
either case shows, that it is the same faculty 
that is in evidence. 

In those hypnotic experiments in which the 
operator merely makes the subject do some ex¬ 
ternal act, we get no further than the fact that 
the person’s individual will has been tem¬ 
porarily put to sleep, and that of the hypnotist 
has taken its place; still even this shows a 
power of impressing upon the subliminal con¬ 
sciousness a personal quality of its own, but 
it does not enable it to exhibit its own powers. 
The object of such experiments is, to exhibit 
the powers of the hypnotist, not to investigate 
the powers of the subliminal personality, which 
is of more importance in the present connec¬ 
tion. But where the hypnotist employs his 


90 


The Law and the Word 


power of command to tell the subliminal self of 
the patient to exercise its own powers, merely 
directing it as to the subject upon which it is 
to be exercised, very wonderful powers in¬ 
deed are exhibited. Places unknown to the 
percipient are accurately described; correct ac¬ 
counts are given of what people are doing else¬ 
where; the contents of sealed letters are read; 
the symptoms of disease are diagnosed and 
suitable remedies sometimes prescribed; and 
so on. Distance appears to make no differ¬ 
ence. In many cases time also does not count, 
and historical events of long ago, with the 
details of which the seer had no acquaintance, 
are accurately described in all their minutiae, 
which have afterwards been corroborated by 
contemporary documents. Nor are cases 
wanting in which events still future have been 
correctly predicted, as, for example, in Ca- 
zotte’s celebrated prediction of the French 
Revolution, and of the fate that awaited each 
member of a large dinner-party when it should 
occur — though this was a spontaneous case, 
and not under hypnotism, which perhaps gives 
it the greater value. 

The same powers are shown in spontaneous 
cases also, of which my own experiences re- 


( 


9 i 


The Soul of the Subject 

lated in a previous chapter may serve as a 
small example; but as there are many books 
exclusively devoted to the subject I need not 
go into further details here. If the reader be 
curious for further information, I would rec¬ 
ommend him to read Gregory’s “ Letters on 
Animal Magnetism.” It was published some 
fifty years ago, and, for all I know, may be 
out of print, but if the reader can procure it, 
he will find that it is a book to be relied upon, 
the work of a Professor of Chemistry in the 
University of Edinburgh, who investigated 
the matter calmly with a thoroughly trained 
scientific mind. But what I want the reader 
to lay hold of is the fact, that whether the 
action occur spontaneously or be induced by 
experimental means, these powers actually ex¬ 
ist in us, and therefore in reckoning up the 
faculties at our disposal they must not be 
omitted. 

In our more usual condition however, these 
faculties are subordinate to those which put 
us in touch with the every-day world, and I 
cannot help thinking, that at our present stage 
this is the best place for them. In this place 
they have a special function to perform, which 
I will speak of in another chapter, and in the 




92 


The Law and the Word 


meanwhile for my own part I should prefer 
to leave their development to the ordinary 
course of Nature, neither stimulating them 
by hypnotic influence, or auto-suggestion, nor 
repressing them if they manifest themselves of 
their own accord. However, every one must 
follow his or her own discretion in this matter; 
the only thing is, do not deny the existence 
of these faculties in yourself because you may 
not consciously exercise them, for they hold a 
very important place in our complex person¬ 
ality. 

All such evidence on the subject as has 
come my way, appears to me to point to the 
fact, that it is through this impersonal or cos¬ 
mic portion of our mind that Thought-Power 
operates upon us, whether in the form of telep¬ 
athy, or of healing treatment, or in any other 
way; and it is through this channel also that 
thought currents, not specially directed to¬ 
wards ourselves, nevertheless affect us, just as 
the first wireless telephone message sent on 
September 29, 1915, from the office of the 
American Telephone Company in New York, 
and directed to San Francisco, was simul¬ 
taneously heard at San Diego, at Darien in 


The Soul of the Subject 93 

Panama, and even as far away as Pearl Island, 
Honolulu, in the Pacific Ocean. 

We sometimes pick up messages which are 
not intended for us; so we must keep our re¬ 
ceiver in perfect syntony of reciprocal vibra¬ 
tion with the stations from which we require 
to receive messages, to the exclusion of others 
which would produce confusion. 

But I have strayed a little from our present 
point, which is rather that of giving out in¬ 
fluence than of receiving it. Through the in¬ 
strumentality of this impersonal cosmic soul 
we can send out our Thought for the healing 
of disease, for the suggestion of good and 
happy ideas, and for many other beneficial 
purposes; though the extent of the result will 
of course be considerably influenced by the 
mental attitude of the recipient, which is there¬ 
fore a factor to be reckoned with. 

But this power of sending out a subtle influ¬ 
ence, call it magnetism or what you will, is not 
confined to operations upon the human sub¬ 
ject. Two ladies of my acquaintance experi¬ 
mented on two rose-trees, which, to all appear¬ 
ances, were both in equally good condition. 
They daily blessed one and cursed the other, 


94 The Lazo and the Word 

with the result that at the end of a month the 
anathematized plant had withered up from the 
roots, while the other was in an abnormally 
flourishing condition. Nor are we entirely 
without scientific backing even in such a case 
as this; for Professor Bose tells us in his work 
on the “ Response of Metals,” that not only 
can they be poisoned by certain chemicals, so 
as to deprive them of their normal qualities, but 
that they can be mesmerized into a similar 
condition. Such facts as these therefore give 
considerable support to the theory of the ex¬ 
istence in everything of a “ soul of the sub¬ 
ject,” which responds after its own manner to 
the power of human thought. 

In what manner, then, is this influence con¬ 
veyed? It is here that our study of etheric 
waves comes to our assistance, by carrying the 
same principle further, and picturing the work¬ 
ing of the known Law under unknown condi¬ 
tions. It will at least enable us to form a 
working hypothesis. I have stated that our 
actual commercial application of the etheric 
waves extends from the ultra-violet waves 
used in photography, and measuring only 
—-— of an inch, to those measuring manv 
miles employed in wireless telegraphy; but this 



The Soul of the Subject 95 

practical application by no means exhausts the 
conceivable possibilities of etheric vibrations; 
for not only do we find a gap of five octaves of 
as yet unknown waves between the dark heat 
group and the Hertzian group, but mathe¬ 
matically there is no limit to the greatness or 
smallness of the waves, and the scale may be 
prolonged indefinitely in either direction. Nor 
is this to be wondered at; for if we consider 
that vibration is not a progress of individual 
particles from one place to another, but the al¬ 
ternate rising and falling of the substance at 
the same point, and that the ether is a homo¬ 
geneous and universally present substance, it is 
obvious that there is nothing to limit the mi¬ 
nuteness or the greatness of the intervals at 
which the rising and falling will occur. There¬ 
fore we have an unlimited field for our im¬ 
agination to play about in. Then, if we fur¬ 
ther reflect that all forms are built up of denser 
or finer aggregations of ether, and that what 
determines the generic form of anything is its 
cosmic soul, or the generating principle of the 
class to which it belongs, it follows that this 
soul must have a corresponding form, however 
inconceivably fine may be the etheric condensa¬ 
tion which thus differentiates it from other 


9 6 


The Law and the Word 


souls, and prevents it from all being mixed up 
together in an indistinguishable mass. If now, 
we combine these two facts, that the soul of 
anything must have a form, however fine, and 
that there is no limit either to the greatness or 
the minuteness of etheric vibrations, we can 
draw certain deductions from these premises. 

It is an established fact of ordinary science 
that, however closely particles of any substance 
may seem to cohere, they are in reality sepa¬ 
rated by interstices through which etheric 
waves can penetrate. 

The principle may be illustrated by the power 
of the X-rays to penetrate apparently solid 
bodies, such as iron. Then, if we combine 
with this the fact, that there is no limit to the 
minuteness of etheric waves, we see that how¬ 
ever fine may be the particles constituting any 
form, it is always possible to have etheric waves 
still finer and thus able to penetrate that form 
and set up vibrations in it. It is our familiarity 
with the denser modes of matter that makes it 
difficult for us to grasp the idea of these finer 
activities; but there is nothing in what we know 
of the denser modes to contradict the concep¬ 
tion; on the contrary, it is just by what we 
have learned of these denser modes that we 


The Soul of the Subject 97 

reach the principles on which these further con¬ 
ceptions are founded. Looking at this, there¬ 
fore, in the light of a mathematical proposition, 
there is absolutely no limit to the fineness of 
any form, or to its susceptibilities to etheric vi¬ 
brations. 

Finally, to this add the power of the Word 
to start trains of etheric vibration, and you get 
the following series: The Word starts the 
etheric waves; these waves produce correspond¬ 
ing vibration in the soul of the subject; and 
the soul of the subject in turn communicates 
corresponding vibration to its body. We may 
thus explain the Creative Power of Thought 
on the basis of recognizable Law, and so we 
believe, because we know why we believe, not 
because somebody else has told us so. Doubt 
is still the creative action of Thought, only it 
is creating negatively; so it is helpful to feel 
that we have some reason for confidence in the 
Power of the Word. There are a great many 
“ Thomases ” among us, and as one of the 
number I shall be glad if I can help my 
“ Brother Tommies ” to get a grip of the why 
and wherefore of the things which appear at 
first sight so fantastic and improbable. 

But the conception we are considering is not 




98 The Law and the Word 

limited to concrete entities, whether persons or 
things. It applies to abstractions also, and it 
it for this reason that I have called it the 
“ Soul of the Subject.” We often speak of the 
“ Soul of Music,” or the “ Soul of Poetry,” 
and so on. Thus our ordinary talk stands on 
the threshold of a great mystery, which, how¬ 
ever, is simple enough in practice. If you 
want to get a clearer view of any subject than 
you have at present, address yourself mentally 
to the abstract soul of that subject, and ask it 
to tell you about itself, and you will find that 
it will do so. I do not say that it will do this 
in any miraculous manner, but what you al¬ 
ready know of the subject will range itself into 
a clearer order, and you will see connections 
that have not previously occurred to you. 
Then again, you will find that information of 
the class required will begin to flow towards you 
through quite ordinary channels, books, news¬ 
papers, or conversation, without your espe¬ 
cially laying yourself out to hunt for it; and 
again, at other times, ideas will come into your 
mind, you do not know how, but illuminating 
the subject with a fresh light. I cannot ex¬ 
plain how all this takes place. I can only say 
from personal experience that it happens. But 


99 


The Soul of the Subject 

of course we must not throw aside ordinary 
common-sense. We must sort out the infor¬ 
mation that comes to us, and compare it with 
our previous knowledge; in fact we must work 
at it: there is no premium for laziness. Nor 
must we^expect to receive by a sudden afflatus 
a complete acquaintance with some subject of 
which we are entirely ignorant. I do not say 
that such a thing is altogether impossible, for 
I cannot venture to limit the possibilities of 
the Universe; but it is certainly not to be 
looked for in the ordinary course. I have 
sometimes been shown specimens of “ inspi¬ 
rational painting ” done by persons said to be 
entirely ignorant of art, and the ignorance is 
very apparent on the face of the work. I dare 
say an artist may be inspired in the production 
of a picture, but the technical training comes 
first, and the inspiration afterwards. The 
same I believe to be true of all other subjects, 
so that we come back to the maxim of the 
power always expressing itself in terms of the 
instrument through which it works. With this 
reservation, however, it appears to me, that 
every class of subject has a sort of soul of 
its own with which we can put ourselves en 
rapport by, so to say, mentally unifying our 





IOO 


The Law and the Word 


own personality with its abstract principle. 

We are told by some teachers, that we can 
in the same way even construct entities in the 
nature of our Thought, and possessing a per¬ 
sonality of their own with which we have en¬ 
dowed them. Whether this be the case I can¬ 
not say — I do not know all the secrets of the 
invisible. But if our thoughts do not create 
personal entities able to hang “ on their 
own hook/’ they create forces which come to 
much the same thing. They start waves in the 
Universal etheric medium, which, like the elec¬ 
tro-magnetic waves of telegraphy, spread all 
round from the point of initial impulse, and 
are picked up whenever a centre happens to 
be attuned to a similar rate of vibration, and 
each new centre energizes these vibrations 
again with a fresh impulse of its own; so in 
this way thought-currents become very real 
things. 

Such, then, is the power of our Word, 
whether spoken or only dwelt upon in Thought, 
to impress itself upon the impersonal element 
around us, whether in persons or things. We 
cannot divest it of the power, though we may 
intensify its action by deliberate use of it, with 
knowledge of the principle involved, and there- 



The Soul of the Subject ioi 

fore, whether consciously or unconsciously, we 
are sending out the influence of our person¬ 
ality all the time. 

Now the more we know of these things the 
greater becomes our responsibility, and I 
would therefore solemnly warn the reader 
against any attempt to use the powers now in¬ 
dicated to the injury of any other person, or 
for the purpose of deriving any one else of 
that liberty of action which he would wish to 
* enjoy himself. Such use of our mental powers 
is in direct opposition to the Law of Unity 
which I have spoken of; and since that Law 
is the basic principle of the whole Universe, 
any opposition to it places us in antagonism 
with a force immeasurably greater than our¬ 
selves. 

Our Thought always continues to be crea¬ 
tive; but in destructive use it becomes creative 
for destructive forces, and, since it has its ori¬ 
gin in our own personality, we are certain 
sooner or later to feel its effects, on the prin¬ 
ciple that every action always produces a cor¬ 
responding reaction. As we have seen, the 
Law knows nothing of persons, but acts auto¬ 
matically in strict accord with the nature of 
the power which has set it in motion. Under 


102 


The Law and the Word 


negative conditions the great Law of the Uni¬ 
verse becomes your adversary, and must con¬ 
tinue to be so, until by your altered mode of 
Thought you put yourself in line with it. 

But on the other hand, if our intention be 
to co-operate with the Great Law, we shall 
find that in it also exists a mysterious “ Soul 
of the Subject,” which will respond to us, 
however imperfectly we may understand its 
modus operandi. It is the intention that 
counts, not the theoretical knowledge. The 
knowledge will grow by experience and medi¬ 
tation, and its value is measured entirely by 
the intention that is at the back of it. 


CHAPTER VI 


The Promises 

We have now, I hope, laid a sufficiently broad 
foundation of the relation between the Law 
and the Word. The Law cannot be changed, 
and the Word can. We have two factors, one 
variable, and the other invariable; so that from 
this combination any variety of resultants may 
be expected. The Law cannot be altered, but 
it can be specialized, just as iron can be made 
to float by the same law by which it sinks. 
Now let us try to figure out in our imagina¬ 
tion an ideal of the sort of results we should 
want to bring out from these two factors. 

In the first place I think we should like to 
be free from all worry and anxiety; for a 
life of continual worry is not worth living. 
And in the second we should like always to 
have something to look forward to and feel 
an interest in; for a life entirely devoid of 
all interest is also not worth living. But, 
granted that these two conditions be fulfilled, 
103 



104 Law and the Word 

I think we should all be well pleased to go on 
living ad infinitum. Now can we conceive 
any combination of the Law and the Word 
which would produce such results? that is the 
question before us. The first step is to gen¬ 
eralize our principle as widely as possible, for 
the wider the generalization, the larger be¬ 
comes the scope for specialization. The invar¬ 
iable factor we already know. It is the Law, 
always creating in accordance with the Word 
that sets it in motion, whether constructive or 
destructive; so what we really have to con¬ 
sider is the sort of Word (i.e. Thought or De¬ 
sire) which will set the Law working in the 
right direction. It must be a Word of con¬ 
fidence in its own power; otherwise by the 
hypothesis of the case it would be giving con¬ 
tradictory directions to the Law, or to borrow 
a simile from what we have learnt about waves 
in ether, it would be sending out vibrations 
that would cancel one another and so produce 
no effect. Then it must be a Word that does 
not compromise itself by antagonizing the Law 
of unity, and so producing disruptive forces 
instead of constructive ones. And finally, we 
must be quite sure that it really is the right 
Word, and that we have been making no mis- 


The Promises 


105 


take about it. If these conditions be fulfilled 
the logical result will be entire freedom from 
anxiety. Similarly with regard to maintain¬ 
ing a continued interest in life. We must have 
a continued succession of ideals, whether great 
or small, that will carry us on with something 
always just ahead of us; and we must work 
the ideals out, and not let them evaporate in 
dreams. If these conditions be fulfilled we 
have before us a life of never-ending interest 
and activity, and therefore a life worth living. 
Where then are we to find the Word which 
will produce these conditions: perfect freedom 
from anxiety and continual, happy interest? 
I do not think it is to be found in any way 
but by identifying our own Word with the 
Word which brings all creation into existence, 
and keeps it always moving onward in that 
continuous forward movement which we call 
Evolution. We must come back to the old 
teaching, that the Macrocosm is reproduced in 
the Microcosm, with the further perception 
that this identity of principle can only be pro¬ 
duced by identity of cause. Law cannot be 
other than eternal and self-demonstrating, just 
as 2 X 2 must eternally = 4; but it remains 
only an abstract conception until the Creative 


106 The Law and the Word 

Word affords it a field of operation, just as 
twice two is four remains only a mathematical 
abstraction until there is something for you to 
count; and accordingly, as we have already 
seen, all our reasoning concerning the origin 
of Creation, whether based on metaphysical or 
scientific grounds, brings us to the conception 
of a Universal and Eternal Living Spirit lo¬ 
calizing itself in particular areas of cosmic ac¬ 
tivity by the power of the Word. Then, if a 
similar Creative Power is to be reproduced in 
ourselves, it must be by the same method: the 
localizing of the same Spirit in ourselves by the 
power of the same “ Word.” Then our Word, 
or Thought, will no longer be that of separate 
personality, but that of the Eternal Spirit find¬ 
ing a fresh centre from which to specialize 
the working of the Law, and so produce still 
further results than that of the First or simply 
Cosmic and Generic Creation, according to 
the two maxims that “ Nature unaided fails,” 
and that “ Principle is not limited by Preced¬ 
ent.” 

I want to make this sequence clear to the 
student before proceeding further: 

i. Localization of the Spirit in specific 
areas of Creative Activity. 


The Promises 


107 


2. Cosmic or Generic Creation, including 
ourselves as a race resulting from this, and 
providing both the material and the instru¬ 
ments for carrying the work further by spe¬ 
cializing the Original Creative Power through 
individual Thought, just as in all cases of 
scientific discovery. 

3. Then, since what is to be specialized 
through our individual Thought is the Word 
of the Originating Power itself, in order to 
do this we must think in terms of the Originat¬ 
ing Word, on the general principle, that any 
power must always exhibit itself in terms of 
the instrument through which it works. 

This, it appears to me, is a clear logical se¬ 
quence, just as a tree cannot make itself into 
a box, unless there be first the idea of a box 
which does not exist in the tree itself, and also 
the tools with which to fashion the wood into 
a box; while on the other hand there could 
never be any box unless there be first a tree. 
Now it is just such a sequence as this that is 
set before us in the Bible, and I do not find it 
adequately set forth in any other teaching, 
either philosophical or religious, with which I 
am acquainted. Some of these systems contain 
a great deal of truth, and are therefore helpful 


108 The Law and the Word 

as far as they go; but they do not go the whole 
way, and for the most part stop short at the 
first or simply Cosmic Creation; or, if they at¬ 
tempt to pass beyond this, it is on the line of 
making unaided power of the individual the 
sole means by which to do so, and thus in fact 
always keeping us at the merely generic level. 
Such a mode of Thought as this, fails to meet 
the requirements of our conception of a happy 
life as one entirely exempt from fear and anx¬ 
iety. In like manner also it fails to meet the 
first requirements of the whole series, viz.: the 
Word should be certain of itself; and if it be 
not certain of itself we have no assurance that 
it may not eventually disappoint our hopes. 
In short, this mode of thought leaves us to 
bear the whole burden from which we want 
to escape. So it is not good enough; we must 
look for something better. 

Now this something better I find in the 
Promises contained in the Bible, and it is this 
that to my mind distinguishes our own Scrip¬ 
tures from the sacred books of all other na¬ 
tions, and from all systems of philosophy. I 
do not at all ignore the current objections to 
the possibility of Divine Promises, but I think 
that on examination they will be found to be 


The Promises 


109 


superficial and resulting from want of careful 
enquiry into the true nature of the Promises 
themselves. How is it possible for the Laws 
of the Universe to make exceptions? How 
can God act by individual favouritism unless 
it be either through sheer caprice, or by the 
individual managing to get round Him in some 
way, either by supplying some need which He 
cannot supply for Himself, in which case God 
is of limited power, or else by flattering Him, 
in which case He is the apotheosis of absurd 
vanity. The two are really the same question 
put in different ways;—the question of indi¬ 
vidual exceptions to the general Law. 

The answer is that there are no individual 
exceptions to the general Law; but there are 
very various degrees of realization of the Prin¬ 
ciple of the Law, and the more a man works 
with the Principle the more the Law will work 
for him; so that the finer his perception of the 
Principle becomes, the more he will appear to 
be an exception to the Law as commonly rec¬ 
ognized. 

Edison and Marconi are not capriciously 
favoured by the laws of Nature, but they know 
more about them than most of us. 

Now it is just the same with the Bible Prom- 


no 


The Law and the Word 


ises. They are Promises according to Law. 
They are based upon the widest generalization 
and hence lead to the highest specialization 
through the combined action of the Law and 
the Word — Jachin and Boaz, the Two Pillars 
of the Universe. 

•These Promises comprise all sorts of desir¬ 
able things: health of body, peace of mind, 
earthly prosperity, prolongation of life, and, 
finally, even the conquest of death itself; but 
always on one condition: perfect “ Confidence 
in the power of the All-Originating Spirit in 
response to our reliance on the Word.” This 
is what the Bible calls Faith; and it is per¬ 
fectly logical when we understand the princi¬ 
ple of it, for every Thought of doubt is, in ef¬ 
fect, the utterance of a Word which produces 
negative results by the very same law by which 
the Word of Faith produces positive ones. 
This is the only condition which the Bible 
imposes for the fulfilment of its Promises, and 
this is because it is inherent in the nature of 
the Law by which their fulfilment is to be 
brought about. 

A few texts will suffice as examples of the 
Bible Promises, and no doubt most of my 
readers are familiar with many others; but 


The Promises 


in 


it would be worth while to read the Bible 
through, marking all such texts, and classify¬ 
ing them according to the sort of promises 
they contain. 

Read, for instance, Job xxii, 21, etc. This is 
a most remarkable passage containing among 
other things the promise of earthly wealth; or 
again Job v, 19, etc., where we find promises 
of protection in time of danger, power over 
material nature, and prolonged life. While in 
Job xxxiii, 23, etc., there is promise of return 
to youth, a promise which is repeated in Psalm 
ciii, 5. Again in Isaiah lxi, 20, etc., there is 
the promise of immensely extended physical 
life, death at the age of one hundred being 
counted so premature as to resemble that of an 
infant, and the normal standard of age being 
compared to a tree which lives for centuries; 
and the same passage also promises immediate 
answer to prayers. The Psalms are full of 
such promises, and they are scattered through¬ 
out the Bible. 

Now there is an unfortunate tendency among 
people who read their Bible with reverence, to 
what they call “ spiritualize ” such passages as 
these, which means that they do not believe 
them. They say such things are impossible; 


112 


The Law and the Word 


and therefore they must have some other mean¬ 
ing, and accordingly they interpret the words 
metaphorically, as referring to something to 
be experienced in another life, but quite impos¬ 
sible in this one. 

Of course there are spiritual equivalents to 
these things, and the teaching of the Bible is, 
that they are the outward correspondences of 
inward spiritual states; but to “ spiritualize ” 
them in the way I am speaking of, is nothing 
but unbelief in the power of God to work on 
the plane of Nature. How such readers square 
their opinion with the fact that God has created 
Nature, I do not know. Even in the animal 
world we find wonderful instances of longevity. 
If an elephant be not overworked before he is 
twenty, he is in full working power up to 
eighty, and will then be capable of light work 
for another twenty years, after which he may 
yet enjoy another twenty years of quiet old 
age as the reward of his labours, while croco¬ 
diles and tortoises have been known to live for 
centuries. If then such things be possible in 
the ordinary course of.Nature in the animal 
world, why need we doubt the specializing 
power of the Word to produce far greater re¬ 
sults in the case of man? It is because we will 


The Promises 


ii 3 

not accept the maxim, that “ Principle is not 
limited by Precedent ” in regard to ourselves, 
though we see it demonstrated by every new 
scientific discovery. We rely more on the past 
experience of the race, than on the Creative 
Power of God. We call Him Almighty, and 
then say that in His Book He promises things 
which He is not able to perform. But the 
fault is with ourselves. We limit “ the Holy 
ONE of Israel,” and as a consequence get 
only so much as by our mental attitude we are 
able to receive — again the old maxim that 
“ Power can only work in terms of the instru¬ 
ment it works through.” I do not say that it 
is at all easy for us to completely rid ourselves 
of negative race-thought ingrained into us from 
childhood, and subtly playing upon that gen¬ 
eric impersonal self in us of which I have 
spoken, and which readily responds to those 
thought-currents to which we are habitually at¬ 
tuned. It is a matter of individual growth. 
But the promises themselves contain no inher¬ 
ent impossibility, and are logical deductions 
from the principles of the Creative Law. 

If the power of the Spirit over things of the 
material plane be an impossibility, then by what 
power did Jesus perform his miracles? Either 


The Law and the Word 


114 

you must deny his miracles, or you must admit 
the power of the Spirit to work on the ma¬ 
terial plane — there is no way out of the di¬ 
lemma. Perhaps you may say: “ Oh, but He 

was God in person! ” Well, all the promises 
affirm that it is God who does these things; so 
what it is possible for God to do at one time, 
it is equally possible for Him to do at all times. 
Or perhaps you hold other theological views, 
and will say that Jesus was an exception to 
the rest of the race; but, on the contrary, the 
whole Bible sets Him forth as the Example — 
an exception certainly to men as we now know 
them, but the Example of what we all have it 
in us to become — otherwise what use is He 
to us? But apart from all argument on the 
subject we have his own words, telling us that 
those who believe in Him, i.e., believe what 
He said about Himself — shall be able to do 
works as great as His own, and even greater 
(John xiv, 12). For these reasons it appears 
to me that on the authority of the Bible itself, 
and also on metaphysical and scientific grounds' 
we are justified in taking such promises as those 
I have quoted in a perfectly literal sense. 

Then there are promises of the power that 
will attend our utterance of the Word. “ Thou 


The Promises 


115 

shalt also decree a thing and it shall be estab¬ 
lished unto thee ” (Job xxii, 28). “ All things 

are possible unto you ” ( Mark ix, 23). “ Who¬ 

soever . . . shall believe that what he sayeth 
cometh to pass, he shall have whatsover he say¬ 
eth ” (Mark xi, 23), and so on. 

Other passages again promise peace of mind. 
“ Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is staid on Thee, because he trusteth in 
Thee ” (Isaiah xxvi, 3). “ Let him take hold 

of my strength that he may make peace with 
me” (Isaiah xxvii, 5). St. Paul speaks of 
“ The God of Peace ” in many passages, e.g., 
Rom. xv, 33; 2 Cor. xiii, 11; 1 Thess. v, 23, 
and Hebr. xiii, 20; and Jesus, in his final dis¬ 
course recorded in the fourteenth, fifteenth 
and sixteenth chapters of St. John’s Gospel, 
lays peculiar stress on the gift of Peace. 

And lastly there are many passages which 
promise the overcoming of death itself; as for 
instance Job xix, 25-27; John viii, 51, and x, 
28, and xi, 25 and 26; Hebr. ii, 14 and 15; 1 
Cor. xv, 50-57; 2 Tim. i, 10; Rom. vi, 23 
(“The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus 
Christ, our Lord ”). 

“ God commanded the blessing, even Life 
for evermore ” (Ps. cxxxiii, 3). 


n6 The Law and the Word 

Now I hope the reader will take the trouble 
to look up the texts to which I have referred, 
and not be lazy. I am sure he would do so if 
he were promised a ten pound note or a fifty 
dollar bill for his pains, and if these prom¬ 
ises are not all bosh, there is something worth 
a good deal more to be got by studying them. 
Just run through the list: health, wealth, peace 
of mind, safety, creative power, and eternal 
life. You would be willing to pay a good 
premium to an Insurance Office that could 
guarantee you all these. Well, there is a Com¬ 
pany that does this without paying any pre¬ 
mium, and its name is “ God and Co., Unlim¬ 
ited”; the only condition is that you yourself 
have to take the part of “ Co.”, and it is not a 
sleeping partnership, but a wide-awake one! 

So I hope you will take the trouble to look 
up the texts; but at the same time you must 
remember that the reading of single texts is not 
sufficient. If you take any isolated phrase you 
choose, without reference to the rest of the 
Book, there is no nonsense you cannot make 
out of the Bible. You would not be allowed to 
do that sort of thing in a Court of Law. 
When a document is produced in evidence, the 
meaning of the words used in it are very care- 



The Promises 


ii 7 


fully construed, not only in reference to the 
particular clause in which they occur, but also 
with reference to the intention of the docu¬ 
ment as a whole, and to the circumstances un¬ 
der which they were written. The same word 
may mean very different things in different 
connections; for instance I remember two re¬ 
ported cases in one of which the word “ Span¬ 
ishmeant a certain sort of leather, and in the 
other a kind of material used in brewing; and 
in like manner particular texts are to be in¬ 
terpreted in accordance with the gist of the 
Bible as a whole. 

This is just the mistake the Jews made, of 
building up theories on particular texts, and 
which Jesus corrected when he said: “ Search 

the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have 
eternal life, and these are they which testify of 
me” (John v, 39), or, as the Revised Version 
puts it: “Ye search the Scriptures because 
ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and 
these are they which bear witness of me,” 
which appears to be the better rendering. 
The words “ ye think ” is the key to the whole 
passage. He says in effect: “You fancy 
that eternal life is to be found in the book. It 
is not to be found in the book, but in what the 


n8 The Law and the Word 

book tells you about, and here I am as a living 
example of it.” It is just the same with every¬ 
thing else. No book can do more than tell you 
about a thing; it cannot produce it. You may 
study the cookery book from morning till 
night, but that will not give you your dinner. 

What Jesus meant was, that we should read 
the Scriptures in the same way we should read 
any other book of practical instruction. First 
think what it is all about; then look at the na¬ 
ture of the general principles involved, and 
then see what instruction the book gives you 
for their practical application. Then go and 
do it. And remember also a further difference 
between reading about a thing and doing it. 
A book is for everybody, and can therefore 
only give general instruction; but when you 
come to do the thing you will always find it 
works with some personal modifications,— not 
departures from the general principles you have 
read about, but specializations of them — and 
in this way you will learn much that is not to 
be got out of books, even the best. 

I remember many years ago, when I was 
much younger, asking one of our leading wa¬ 
ter-colour artists, 1 how he would recommend 


i R. W. Allen. 


The Promises 


119 

me to study landscape painting, and he said: 
“ Practise continually from Nature, and you 
will learn more than any one can teach you; 
that is how I have learnt, myself.” On the sub¬ 
ject, then in question, he said just what Jesus 
did: “ Here I am as a practical example of 

what I tell you.” And another thing is, that 
the more you think principles out for yourself 
and try to observe them in practice, the clearer 
the meaning of your book will become to you. 
I have a few excellent books on painting, but 
I had no idea how excellent they were when I 
first got them; practical experience has taught 
me to find much more in them than I did at 
first, for now I understand better what they 
are talking about. Well, that is the way to 
read the Bible, neither despising it as worth¬ 
less tradition, nor treating the mere letter of 
it with superstitious veneration; both extremes 
are to be equally avoided. In fact the Bible 
tells us so itself: “ The letter killeth, but the 

Spirit giveth life” (2 Cor. iii, 6); this, of 
course, does not mean that the letter can be 
tampered with, any more than a judge can al¬ 
ter the wording of a document put in evidence; 
it must be interpreted in the general sense of 
the document as a whole; and when the letter 


120 


The Law and the Word 


is thus vivified by the Spirit, it will be found 
fully to express it. But we require to enter 
into the Spirit of it first. 

Now it appears to me, that taken in this way, 
the Bible is an exceedingly practical book, and 
that is why I want the reader to get at some 
general principles which he will find, mutatis 
mutandis, equally applicable all round, whether 
to electricity, or to life, and whatever may 
be the subject-matter, it will always be found 
to resolve itself into a question of the re¬ 
lation between Law and Personality. If now 
we read the Bible Promises in the light of 
the general principles we have considered in 
the earlier pages, we shall find that they are all 
Promises according to Law. They are state¬ 
ments of the results to be obtained by a truer 
realization of the principles of Law and Per¬ 
sonality than we have hitherto apprehended. 

We must always bear in mind that the Law 
is set in motion by the Word. The Word does 
not make the Law, but gives it something to 
work upon, so that without the Word there 
could be no manifestation of the Law, a truth 
embodied in the maxim, that “ Every Creation 
carries its own mathematics along with it.” If 
the reader remembers what I have said in the 


The Promises 


121 


chapter of “ The Soul of the Subject,” he will 
see that the principle involved, is that of the 
susceptibility of the Impersonal to suggestions 
from the Personal. This follows of course 
from the very Conception of Impersonality; it 
is that which has no power of selection and 
volition, and which is therefore without any 
power of taking an initiative on its own ac¬ 
count. 

In a previous chapter I have pointed out that 
the only possible conception of the inaugura¬ 
tion of a world-system, resolves itself into the 
recognition of one original and universal Sub¬ 
stantive Life, out of which proceeds a corre¬ 
sponding Verb, or active energy, reproducing 
in action what the Substantive is in essence. 
On the other hand there must be something for 
this active principle to work in; and since there 
can be nothing anterior to the Universal Life 
or Energy, both these factors must be poten¬ 
tially contained in it. If, then, we represent 
this Eternal Substantive Life by a circle with 
a dot in the centre, we may represent these two 
principles as emerging from it by placing two 
circles at equal distance below it, one on either 
side, and placing the sign + in one, and the 
sign — in the other. This is how students of 


122 


The Law and the Word 


these subjects usually map out the relation of 
the prima principia, or first abstract principles. 
The sign + indicates the Active principle, and 
the sign — the Passive principle. If the reader 
will draw a little diagram as described, it will 
help to make what follows clearer. 

Necessarily the initiative must be taken by 
the Active principle; and the taking of initia¬ 
tive implies selection and volition, that is to say, 
the essential qualities of personality; and Pas¬ 
sivity implies the converse of all this, and there¬ 
fore is Impersonality. The two principles in 
no way conflict with one another, but are polar 
opposites, like the positive and negative plates 
of a battery, or the two ends of a magnet. 
They are complementary to one another, and 
neither can work without the other. A little 
consideration will show that this is not a mere 
fancy, but a self-obvious generalization, the 
contrary to which it is impossible to conceive. 
It is simply the case of the box which cannot 
come into existence without the activity of the 
carpenter and the passivity of the wood. 

From such considerations as this the deep 
thinkers of old times posited the generating of 
a world-system by the inter-action of what they 
named Animus Dei, the Active principle, and 


The Promises 


1 23 


Anima Mundi, or Soul of the Universe, the 
Passive principle — the one Personal, and the 
other Impersonal; and by the hypothesis of the 
case the only mode of activity possible to 
Anima Mundi is response to Animus Dei. But 
the same impersonal passivity. must also make 
Anima Mundi receptive likewise to lesser and 
more individualized modes of Personality, and 
it becomes, so to say, fecundated by the ideas 
thus impressed upon it. In every case “ the 
word is the seed.” We may picture this plant¬ 
ing of an idea or “ word ” in the Cosmic soul 
as acting very much like the initial impulse 
that starts a train of waves in ether, and these 
thought-waves are reproduced in corresponding 
forms; or, to recur to the simile of seed, the 
cosmic soul acts like the soil and gives it nour¬ 
ishment. Looking at it in this way the old 
exponents of these things regarded the Active 
principle as Masculine, and the Passive as Fem¬ 
inine, the one generating and the other nutri¬ 
tive, corresponding to the words rouah and 
hoshech, the expansion and compression prin¬ 
ciples in the Hebrew text of the opening verses 
of Genesis. 

If then we posit this impersonal Soul of the 
Universe as the living principle dwelling in the 


124 77 ie Law and the Word 

substance of the etheric Universal Medium it 
will account for a good many things. If it be 
asked why we should assume the presence of a 
living principle in the Universal Substance the 
answer is in the maxim “ Quod ex Vivo 
Vivum,” what proceeds from Life is living. 
Then as we see by our diagram, Anima Mundi 
equally with Animus Dei proceeds from the 
original Substantive of Life, and therefore, on 
the principle of the above maxim, that like pro¬ 
duces like, Anima Mundi must also be a living 
thing whose vehicle is the Universal Substance. 

We may picture then, the response of the 
indwelling Soul of the Universal Medium to 
our Thought, as starting corresponding vibra¬ 
tions in the Substance of the Medium, just as 
our own thought, acting through the vibratory 
system of our nerves, causes our body to make 
the movement we intend. But perhaps you 
will say: How can this be, seeing that by the 
hypothesis the Soul of the Universe is Imper¬ 
sonal, and therefore unintelligent? Well, it is 
just this fact of having no thought of its own, 
that enables us to impress our thought upon it 
and cause it, so to say, to “ take on ” an intelli¬ 
gence relatively to the subject of our thought, 
much in the same way that the impersonal soul 


The Promises 


125 


in the human subject “ takes on ” or reflects 
the thought of the hypnotist, and not infre¬ 
quently develops it to a far greater extent than 
the original thought of the operator expressed. 
Such a hypothesis — and I think some such 
hypothesis is needed to account for any crea¬ 
tion at all —throws light on the modus oper - 
andi of the Bible Promises. We plant the 
Word of the Promise in the womb of Anima 
Mundi, and if we do not uproot it by using 
the same power adversely, it is bound to come 
to fruition in due course, by the same Law by 
which the world-systems are formed; and if 
we are to believe that the Word of the Prom¬ 
ise is not our own word, but the Word of God, 
then our Thought of it is imbued with a cor¬ 
responding power as we hand it over to Anima 
Mundi. Thus the Promises fulfil themselves 
automatically, in accordance with the principles 
of the relations between Law and Personality, 
and they do so, not in our own power, but by 
the Power of the Word of God. 

This, then, gives us at least an intelligible 
working hypothesis of the rationale of the Bible 
Promises. The measurement of their fulfil¬ 
ment is exactly proportional to our belief in 
them, not from any unintelligible cause, and 


126 


The Law and the Word 


still less from any unreasoning feat of a ca¬ 
pricious Deity, but by the working of an in¬ 
telligible Law. If any of my readers happens 
to be an electrician, he will find an exact par¬ 
allel in what is known as Ohm’s Law. Such 
readers will be familiar with the formula C = 
E 

-j-, but for the benefit of those to whom this 
formula may be unintelligible, I will give a 
few words of explanation. C means the cur¬ 
rent of electricity which is to be delivered for 
any work that is to be done. E stands for the 
Electro-motive force which generates the cur¬ 
rent; and R is the Resistance offered to the 
current by the conductor, such as the wires 
through which it flows. If there be no resist¬ 
ance, the full amount of current generated 
would be delivered. But without any conduc¬ 
tor no current could be delivered, and there¬ 
fore there must be some resistance, and so the 
full power of the Electro-motive force can 
never be delivered by the Current. The 
amount that will be delivered is the original 
power of the Electro-motive force divided by 
the Resistance. The Resistance therefore acts 
as a restricting force, limiting the extent to 
which the power of the original Electro-motive 
force shall be delivered at the point where the 


The Promises 


127 


work is to be done, but at the same time no 
delivery at that point could be effected with¬ 
out it; so the Resistance also has a necessary 
part to play in the working of the circuit. 
Now if we want to translate the formula C — 
E 

into terms of spiritual force we may put it 
thus: E stands for the limitless Potential of 
the Eternal Spirit; C stands for the current 
flowing from it; and R stands for the localiz¬ 
ing quality of our thought. We cannot en¬ 
tirely dispense with this localizing quality, for 
our whole purpose is to transmute the unlim¬ 
ited , undifferentiated power, which subsists in 
the Eternal Substantive of Spirit, into a par¬ 
ticular differentiated mode of action, which 
therefore implies a corresponding centraliza¬ 
tion. This is the proper function of our 
thought. It is this compressing power which, 
as I said above, the Hebrew renders by the 
word “ hoshech ” in the opening verses of 
Genesis, and which is the necessary comple¬ 
mentary to the converse expanding power or 
“ rouahT It takes the co-operation of the two 
to produce any results. 

Restricted, then, to its proper function our 
R or condensing quality is an essential factor 
in the work. But if it be allowed to take the 


128 


The Law and the Word 


form of doubt or unbelief, then it renders the 
flow of the current from the Spirit ineffective 
to the extent to which the doubt is entertained; 
and if doubt be allowed to degenerate into total 
unbelief and denial of the Power of the Spirit, 
we thereby cancel the originating force alto¬ 
gether. To put it in terms of the electrical 
formula, we make R greater than E, in which 
case no current can flow. We thus find that 
the words “ According to your faith be it unto 
you ” are actually the statement of a Mathe¬ 
matical Law, having nothing vague about them. 
This may be a somewhat original application 
of Ohm’s Law, but the parallel is so exact, 
that I cannot help thinking it will appeal to 
some of my readers who may be conversant 
with Electrical Science. For those who are 
not, a simpler simile may be, that you cannot 
deliver a more powerful stream of water than 
the bore of the pipe through which it flows 
will admit of; or, to employ a legal truism, de¬ 
livery on the part of the donor must be met by 
acceptance on the part of the donee before a 
deed of gift can become operative; or, in still 
simpler language, “you may take a horse to 
the water but you can’t make him drink.” 

We see, then, that there is a Law of Faith, 


The Promises 


129 


and that Faith is not a denial of the universal 
reign of Law, but the perception of its widest 
generalization, and therefore giving scope to 
its highest specialization. The opposition be¬ 
tween Faith and Law, of which St. Paul so 
often speaks, is the opposition between this 
broad view of the ultimate Principle of the 
Creative Law and that narrower view of re¬ 
striction by particular laws, which prevents us 
from grasping the Law of Faith; but that he 
does not deny the Principle of Law, that is the 
relation between C and E, is clear from his 
own statement in Rom. viii, where he says: 
“ The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus 
sets me free from the law of Sin and Death ”; 
in other words: the Law of the Good sets us 
free from the Law of Evil; and for the same 
reason St. James says, that the perfect law 
is the law of Liberty (Jas. i, 25). 

Of course if we suppose that faith is some¬ 
thing contrary to the law of the Universe we 
at once import into our thought the negative 
quality which entirely vitiates our action. We 
rightly perceive that the laws of the Universe 
can never be altered, and if our notion of 
Faith be, that it is an attempt to work in con¬ 
tradiction to these laws, the best definition we 


130 The Law and the Word 

can give it is that given by the little girl in 
the Sunday school, who said that “ Faith is 
trying to make yourself believe what you know 
is not true. ,, The reason for such a misconcep¬ 
tion is, that it entirely omits one of the fac¬ 
tors in the calculation. It considers only the 
Law, and gives no place to the Word in the 
scheme of things. Yet we do not carry this 
misconception into the sciences of chemistry 
and electricity. We take the immutability of 
the Law as the basis of these sciences, but we 
do not expect the immutable Law to produce a 
photographic apparatus, or an electric train, 
without the intervention of a reasoning and 
selective power which specializes the funda¬ 
mental general Law into particular uses. We 
do not look to the Law for those powers of 
reasoning and selection, through which we 
make it work in all the highly complex ways 
of our ordinary commercial applications of it 
— we know better than that. We look to Per¬ 
sonality for this. In our every-day pursuits 
we always act on the maxim that “ Nature un¬ 
aided fails,” and that the infinite possibilities 
stored up in the Law, can only be brought to 
light by a power of reasoning and selection 
working through the Law. This co-operation 


The Promises 


131 

of the Personal with the Impersonal is the Law 
of the Law; and since the Law is unchange¬ 
able, this Law of the Law must also be un¬ 
changeable, and must therefore apply on all 
planes, and through all time — the Law, that 
without co-operation of the Law and the Word 
nothing can be brought into existence, from 
a solar system to a pin; while on the other 
hand there is no limit to what can be got out 
of the Law by the operation of the Word. 

If the student will look at the Bible Prom¬ 
ises in the light of the general principles, he 
will find that they are perfectly logical, whether 
from the metaphysical or from the scientific 
standpoint, and that their working is only from 
the same Law through which all scientific de¬ 
velopments are made. If this be apprehended 
it will be clear that the Word of Faith is not 
“ trying to make ourselves believe what we 
know is not true,” but, as St. Paul puts it, it is 
“ giving substance to things not yet seen ” 
(Heb. xi, 1, R. V.). 


CHAPTER VII 


Death and Immortality 

I think most of my readers will agree with 
me, that the greatest of all the promises is that 
of the overcoming of death, for, as the greater 
includes the less, the power which can do that 
can do anything else. We think that there 
are only two things that are certain in this 
world — death and taxes, and no doubt, under 
the ordinary past conditions, this is quite true; 
but the question is: are they really inherent in 
the essential nature of things; or are they not 
the outcome of our past limited, and often in¬ 
verted modes of Thought? The teaching of 
the Bible is that they are the latter. On the 
subject of taxes the Master says: “Render 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s ” 
(Matth. xxii, 21), but on another occasion he 
said that the children of the King were not 
liable to taxation (Matth. xvii, 26). However 
we may leave the “ taxes ” alone for the pres¬ 
ent, with the remark that their resemblance to 
132 


Death and Immortality 133 

death consists in both being, under present con¬ 
ditions, regarded as compulsory. Under other 
conditions, however, we can well imagine 
“ taxes ” disappearing in a unity of thought 
which would merge them in co-operation and 
voluntary contribution; and it appears to me 
quite possible for death to disappear in like 
manner. 

In whatever way we may interpret the story 
of Eden, whether literally, or if, like some of 
the Fathers of the church such as Origen, we 
take it as an allegory, the result is the same — 
that Death is not in the essence of man’s crea¬ 
tion, but supervened as the consequence of an 
inverted mode of thinking. The Creative 
Spirit thought one way, and Eve thought an¬ 
other; and since the Thought of the Creating 
Spirit is the origin of Life, this difference of 
opinion naturally resulted in death. Then, 
from this starting-point, all the rest of the Bible 
is devoted to getting rid of this difference of 
opinion between us and the Spirit of Life, and 
showing us that the Spirit’s opinion is truer 
than ours, and so leading us to adopt it as our 
own. The whole thing turns on the obvious 
proposition, that if you invert the cause you 
also invert the effect. It is the principle that 


134 


The Law and the Word 


division is the inversion of multiplication, so 
that if 2 X 2 = 4 then you cannot escape from 
4 

the consequence that — = 2. The question 
2 

then is, which of the two opinions is the more 
reasonable — that death is essentially inherent 
in the nature of things, or that it is not? 

Probably ninety-nine out of a hundred 
readers will say, the whole experience of man¬ 
kind from the earliest ages proves that Death 
is the unchangeable Law of the Universe, and 
there have been no exceptions. I am not quite 
sure that I should altogether agree with them 
on this last point; but putting that aside, let us 
consider whether it really is the essential Law 
of the Universe. To say that this is proved 
by the past experience of the race, is what 
logicians call a petitio principii — it is assum¬ 
ing the whole point at issue. It is the same 
argument which our grandfathers would have 
used against aerial navigation — no one had 
ever travelled in the air, and that proved that 
no one ever could. My father, who was a jun¬ 
ior officer in I»dia when the first railway was 
run in England, used to tell a story of one of his 
senior officers, who, on being asked what he 
thought of the rapidity of the new mode of 


Death and Immortality 135 

travelling, said he thought it was “ all a damned 
lie,” which opinion appeared to him to settle 
the whole question. But I hope that none of 
my readers will hold the same opinion regard¬ 
ing the overcoming of death, even though they 
might express it in more polite language. At 
any rate it may be worth while to examine the 
theoretical possibility of the idea. 

To begin with, it involves a self-contradic¬ 
tion to say that the energy of any force can 
stop the working of that force. If a force 
stops working, it is for one of two reasons, 
either that the supply of it is exhausted, or that 
it is overcome by an opposite and neutralizing 
force. But we have seen that the Originating 
Cause of all things can only be an inexhaustible 
Power of Life, and therefore the hypothesis 
of it becoming exhausted is eliminated; and 
similarly, since all the forces of the Universe 
proceed from this Source, it is impossible for 
any of them to have a nature diametrically op¬ 
posite to that of the source from which they 
flow. So the alternative must be eliminated 
also. Accordingly, the outflow, undifferen¬ 
tiated, of Life and Energy from the Eternal 
Substantive of Spirit, is never stopped by its 
own current in any of its differentiated 


136 


The Law and the Word 


streams; it is impossible for a current to be 
stopped by its own flow, whether it be a cur¬ 
rent of electricity, steam, water, or anything 
else. What then does stop the flow of any 
sort of current? It is the Resistance or inertia 
of the channel through which it flows; so that 
we come back to the formula of Ohm’s Law, 

C = — as a general proposition applicable to 
R 

any conceivable sort of energy. 

The neutralizing power then, is not that of 
the flowing of any sort of energy, but the ri¬ 
gidity, or inertia of the medium through which 
the energy has to make its way; thus bringing 
us back to rouah and hoshech, the expansive 
and compressive principles of the opening 
verses of Genesis. It is the broad scientific 
generalization of the opposition between Ertia, 
or Energy, and Inertia, or Absence of Energy; 
and since, for the reasons just given, Ertia 
cannot go against itself, the only thing that can 
stop it is Inertia. 

Now the components of the human body are 
simply various chemical elements — so much 
carbon, so much hydrogen, etc., as any text¬ 
book on the subject will tell you; and although, 
of course, every sort of substance is the abode 


Death and Immortality 137 

of ceaseless atomic energy, we all recognize 
that merely atomic energy is not that of the 
powers of thought, will, and perception, which 
make us organized mentalities instead of a mere 
aggregation of the various substances exposed 
to view in a biological museum, as constituting 
the human body — you might take all these 
substances in their proper proportions, and 
shake them up together, but you would not 
make an intelligent man of them. We are 
therefore safe in saying that the physiological 
body represents the principle of inertia in us, 
while the something that thinks in us repre¬ 
sents the principle of ertia. 

The balance of power between the Life Prin¬ 
ciple in us and the Death Principle, is then, 
necessarily, a question of the balance between 
these two, the spirit and the flesh, or ertia and 
inertia. 

Why then does the balance preponderate to 
the life-side for a certain length of time, and 
then go over to the opposite side? 

Now this brings us to the distinction which 
the old writers drew, between the “ Vital Soul ” 
of any living thing and the Spirit. Their con¬ 
ception of the “ Vital Soul ” was very much 
the same as I have set forth in the chapter on 


The Law and the Word 


138 

“ The Soul of the Subject.” It is the indi¬ 
vidual's particular share of the Cosmic Soul 
or Anima Mundi, whether it be an individual 
tree, or an individual person; and the ordinary 
maximum length of time, during which the 
Vital Soul will be able to overcome the inertia 
of its physical vehicle, depends upon the par¬ 
ticular class to which the individual be¬ 
longs. What the ordinary maximum is in re¬ 
gard to any species is a matter of experience, 
and it is in this way that we have fixed the 
usual limit of human life at three-score years 
and ten. 

Now it is here that we shall begin to profit 
by some knowledge about the invisible part of 
ourselves. The actual molecules of our body, 
as I have just said, are only so much dead mat¬ 
ter. This inert material is pulled about in va¬ 
rious directions by strings which we call 
muscles, according to the movements we wish 
our bodies to make, and these muscles are set 
in motion by the vibrations of the nerves. 1 
But what is it that occasions these vibrations 
of the nerves? Here we begin to pass beyond 
the limits of official Science, though not beyond 

1 See Chapters on “ Body, Soul, and Spirit ” in my 
“ Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science.” 


Death and Immortality 139 

the limits of recognizable Law. We have to 
recognize the existence of an etheric body act¬ 
ing as an intermediary between intention, de¬ 
sire, or (in the case of human beings) thought 
of the soul and the physical vibrations of the 
nerves. This is why, in an earlier chapter, I 
have drawn attention to our power of sending 
out etheric vibrations beyond the limits of the 
physical body, as in the case of De Rocha's ex¬ 
periments. Such experiments show that there 
is in us something not composed of dense mat¬ 
ter, which is able to convey vibrations to dense 
matter; and it is this something which we speak 
of as the etheric body. 

But if we wish to trace the links by which 
our thought operates upon the physical body, 
we find ourselves compelled to postulate yet an¬ 
other intermediary, what I have spoken of as 
the “ Vital Soul ”— a vehicle which does not 
consciously think, but in which what we may 
call race-consciousness becomes centred in the 
individual. This race-consciousness is none 
other than the ever-present “ will-to-live ” 
which is the basis of physical evolution — that 
automatically acting principle — which causes 
plants to turn towards the sun, animals to seek 
their proper food, and both animals and men 


140 The Law and the Word 

to try instantly to escape from immediate 
danger. It is what we call instinct which does 
not reason. I may give a laughable expe¬ 
rience of my own to illustrate the fact that 
conscious reason is not the method of this fac¬ 
ulty. Once when on leave from India I was 
walking along a street in London in the heat 
of a summer’s day and suddenly noticed just 
at my feet a long dark thing apparently wrig¬ 
gling across the white glare of the pavement. 
“ Snake! ” I exclaimed, and jumped aside for 
all I was worth, and the next moment was 
laughing at myself for not recollecting that 
cobras were not common objects in the London 
streets. But it looked just like one, and of 
course turned out to be nothing but a piece of 
rag. Well, instinct did its duty even if it did 
make a fool of me; but there is certainly no 
conscious reasoning in the matter, only the 
automatic action of inherent Law—“Self- 
preservation is the first law of Nature.” 

This Vital Soul, then, is the seat of all those 
instincts which go towards the preservation of 
the individual’s physical body, and towards the 
propagation of the race; and it is on this ac¬ 
count that our theosophical friends call it the 
“ Desire Body ” or, to use the Indian term 



Death and Immortality 141 

“ Kama rupa.” It acts with conscious inten¬ 
tion, but not with conscious reasoning. It is 
thus distinguished on the one hand from the 
etheric body, which is a mere vehicle for finer 
vibrations than can take place in the denser 
matter of the physical body, but which has no 
intention; and on the other from the mind 
which acts by conscious reasoning, and it thus 
forms an intermediary between the two. 

The importance of recognizing the place of 
this higher intermediary in the ascending scale 
of living principle is, that for all practical pur¬ 
poses the .animal world does not rise higher 
than this in the scale. It is true that in par¬ 
ticular instances we find the first dawning of 
the mental faculty in an animal, but it is only 
very faint; so this does not affect the broad 
general principle. The point to be noted is 
that up to this stage human beings are built on 
the same lines as animals, and what distin¬ 
guishes us, v is the addition in ourselves of a 
higher factor,— that of the reasoning mind ex¬ 
ercising the power of conscious thought. 

Now it is the direction of this thought that 
influences the three lower factors. The se¬ 
quence, going upwards, is as follows: — move¬ 
ment is communicated to the physical body by 


142 


The Law and the Word 


the etheric body; and movement is communi¬ 
cated to the etheric body by the Vital Soul; 
then, in proportion as the purely instinctive 
action of the Vital Soul is controlled by the 
conscious thought, so its action upon the two 
lowest principles is modified. 

Here, then, is the crucial point. In what 
direction is the conscious thought going to 
modify the action of the three principles that 
are below it? If it takes the soul of mere ra¬ 
cial desire and the physical body as its stand¬ 
ard of thought, then it naturally follows that it 
cannot raise it any higher. It has descended 
to their level and so cannot pour any stream 
of life into it, on the simple principle that no 
current can ever flow from a lower to a higher 
level, whether the difference in level be that of 
actual elevation, as in the case of water, or 
different in potential, as in the case of elec¬ 
tricity. On the other hand if the conscious 
mind recognizes that itself proceeds from some 
higher source, it looks to receive life from that 
source, and its thought is modified accordingly, 
and in turn re-acts correspondingly upon the 
lower principles. 

If this is clear to the student, he will now 
see how it is that by limiting our conception 


Death and Immortality 143 

of life to the current ideas entertained by the 
race, we impress these ideas on our three lower 
principles. It is true that these three princi¬ 
ples are not capable of reasoning themselves, 
but the highest of them, the Vital Soul, has its 
action modified by the reasoning principle above 
it, and so communicates to the two lowest prin¬ 
ciples corresponding waves of vibration. And 
in this connection we must remember the dis¬ 
tinction between the two systems of nerves; the 
voluntary system connected with the brain and 
forming the medium of all voluntary action, 
and the involuntary, or sympathetic system con¬ 
nected with the solar plexus and controlling all 
the automatic actions of the body, and thus 
being the agent of that continual renewal of the 
physical organism which is always going on, 
and keeps in existence for a life time a body 
which begins to disintegrate immediately the 
soul has left it. 1 Now it is through this inner 
Builder of the Body that our Thought re-acts 
upon our physical organism. The response is 
purely automatic, for the simple reason that 
there is no original thinking power in the three 
lower principles; the action is that of the Law 
as directed by Thought or Word. 

1 See “ Edinburgh Lectures.” 


144 77 z £ Law and the Word 

In this way then, it appears to me, the Per¬ 
sonal in us acts upon the Impersonal in us; and 
if we assume, as I think we may, that this ac¬ 
tion takes place by means of etheric waves, we 
have, on general scientific principles, a clue to 
what we read in the Bible about the transmuta¬ 
tion of the body. The theory of the constitu¬ 
tion of the atom shows us that its nature is de¬ 
termined by the number of its particles and 
their rate of revolution, and that a change in 
the rate of revolution results in the throwing 
off of some of the particles. Then the number 
of particles being altered, there results a change 
in the distribution of the positive and negative 
charges within the sphere of the atom, since 
they must always exactly balance one another ; 
and this change in the distribution of the posi¬ 
tive and negative charges must instantly re¬ 
sult in a corresponding change in the geometri¬ 
cal configuration of particles constituting the 
atom. 

That the particles automatically arrange 
themselves into groups of different geometri¬ 
cal form within the sphere of the atom, has 
been demonstrated both mathematically and ex¬ 
perimentally by Professor J. J. Thompson, 1 

1 “ New Knowledge.” 


Death and Immortality 145 

these geometrical forms resulting of course 
from the balance of attraction and repulsion 
between the positive and negative charges of 
the particles. 

That the transmutation of one substance into 
another is not a mere dream of the me¬ 
diaeval alchemists is now already shown by 
Modern Science. Under suitable conditions 
an atom of Radium breaks down into 
atoms of another sort known as Radium 
Emanations, and these again break down 
into yet another sort of atoms to which 
the name of Radium Emanations X has been 
given, while Radium Emanation also gives 
rise to the atom of Helium (N. K. 124). 
Thorium also behaves in the same manner, 
transmuting into atoms called Thorium X, 
which again change into atoms of another sort 
to which the name of Thorium Emanations 
has been given and these in turn transmute 
into atoms of yet another kind, known as 
Thorium Emanations X. The same is the case 
also with Uranium which, however, so far as 
is yet known, undergoes only one transmuta¬ 
tion into what is known as Uranium X. 

The transmutation of one sort of atom into 
another is therefore not a mere visionary 


146 The Law and the Word 

fancy, but an established fact; and although 
our laboratory experiments in this direction 
may not as yet have gone very far, they have 
gone far enough to show that a Law of Trans¬ 
mutation does exist in Nature. Then, since 
the difference between one sort of atom and 
another results from the difference and ar¬ 
rangement of their particles, and the differ¬ 
ence in the number and arrangement of the 
particles results from the difference in the 
speed of their rotation, and this again results 
from the difference in the energy or rate of 
vibration of the particles, we come back to dif¬ 
ferent rates of etheric vibrations as the com¬ 
mencement of the whole series of changes; and 
as is proved by the facts of wireless telephon¬ 
ing, different rates of etheric vibrations can 
be set in motion by the varying sounds of the 
human voice, even on the physical plane. May 
it not be then, that by the same law, vibra¬ 
tions of other wave-lengths, yet unknown to 
science, will be set in motion by the unspoken 
word of our thought? 

The substance known as Polonium, even by 
its near approach to an electric bell, causes it to 
ring, and if etheric waves can thus be started by 
an inanimate substance, why should we suppose 


Death and Immortality 147 

that our thought has less power, especially 
when metaphysically we cannot avoid the con¬ 
clusion that the whole creation must have its 
origin in the Divine Thought? 

From such considerations as these, I think 
we may reasonably infer that if the mind be 
illuminated by a range of thought coming from 
a higher mind, there is no limit to the power 
which may thus be exercised over the material 
world, and that therefore St. Paul’s statement 
regarding the transmutation of the present 
physical body, is one which should be included 
in the circle of our ideas, as being within the 
scope of the Laws of the Universe when their 
action is specialized by the power of the Word 
(1 Cor. xv) ; and similarly with regard to 
other statements to the same effect contained 
in the Bible. What is wanted is the realiza¬ 
tion of a greater Word than that which we 
form from the current experience of the race. 
The race has formed its Word on the basis of 
the lower principles of our being, and if we 
are to advance beyond this, the Law of the sub¬ 
ject clearly indicates that it can only be by 
adopting a more fundamental Word, or Idea, 
than that which we have hitherto thought to 
include the entire range of possibilities. The 


148 The Law and the Word 

Law of our further Evolution demands a Word 
not formed from past experiences, but based 
upon the eternal principle of the All-Originat¬ 
ing Life itself. And this is in strict accord 
with scientific method. If we had always al¬ 
lowed ourselves to be ruled by past experiences 
we should still be primitive savages; and it is 
only by the gradual perception of underlying 
principles, that we have attained the degree of 
civilization we have reached to-day; so what 
the Bible puts before us is simply the applica¬ 
tion to the life in ourselves of the maxim that 
“ Principle is not limited by Precedent.” 

Now the Bible Promises serve to put us on 
the track of this Principle: they suggest lines 
of enquiry. And the enquiry leads to the con¬ 
clusion that the two ultimate factors are the 
Law and the Word. What we have missed 
hitherto is the conception of the limitless possi¬ 
bilities of the Law, and the limitless power of 
the Word. On one occasion the Master said to 
the Jews “Ye know not the Scriptures neither 
the power of God” (Matth. xxii, 29) and the 
same is the case with ourselves. The true 
“ Scripture ” is the “ scriptura rerum ” or the 
Law indelibly written in the nature of things, 
and the written Scriptures are true only be- 


Death and Immortality 149 

cause they contain the statement of the Prin¬ 
ciple of the Law. Therefore until we see the 
Principle of the Law we “ know not the Scrip¬ 
tures/' On the other hand, until we see the 
Principle of the operation of the Word through 
the Law, we do not know “ the Power of 
God ”; and it is only as we come to perceive 
the interaction of the Law and the Word that 
we see the beginning of the way that leads to 
Life and Liberty. 

But although it is evident from the text just 
quoted, as well as from other intimations in 
his Epistles, that St. Paul fully grasped the 
principle of the transmutation of the body, he 
himself tells us that he has not yet realized it 
in practice. He says he has not yet “ attained 
to the resurrection from the dead," but is still 
pressing on towards its attainment (Ph. iii, 
12). And it is to be remarked that he is not 
here speaking of a general “ resurrection of the 
dead," but, as the word exanastasis in the orig¬ 
inal Greek indicates, of a special resurrection 
from among the dead; this indicates an indi¬ 
vidual achievement, not merely something com¬ 
mon to the whole race. From this and other 
passages it is evident that by “ the dead " it 
means those whose conception of Life is lim- 


150 The Law and the Word 

ited to the four lower principles, thus unifying 
the mind with the three principles which are 
below it; and the same idea is expressed in a 
variety of ways all through the Bible. This 
therefore shows that he is quite aware that 
knowledge of a principle does not enable us 
then and there to attain the completeness of 
the application, and if this be the case with St. 
Paul, we cannot be surprised to find it the same 
with ourselves. But on the other hand knowl¬ 
edge of the principle is the first step towards 
getting it to work. 

Well, St. Paul is dead and buried, and so I 
suppose will most of us be in a few years; so 
the question confronts us, what becomes of us 
then? 

As Milton puts it in “ II Penseroso ” we 
want 

“to unsphere 

The spirit of Plato and unfold 
What worlds or what vast regions hold 
The immortal mind that hath forsook 
Her mansion in the fleshly nook.” 

Yes, this is a question of deep personal in¬ 
terest to us; but as I cannot speak from expe¬ 
rience, I will restrict myself to seeing whether 
we can form any sort of general hypothesis on 


Death and Immortality 151 

the basis of the principles we have recognized. 
What then is likely to survive ? The physical 
body is of course disintegrated by the chemistry 
of Nature. The etheric body probably con¬ 
tinues to retain its form longer, because it is a 
condensation of etheric particles wrought to¬ 
gether by the etheric waves sent out by the 
Vital Soul, and is therefore not subject to the 
laws of chemical affinity. The Vital Soul, be¬ 
ing the race-principle of life in the individual, 
— that principle which automatically seeks to 
preserve the individual from disintegration,— 
probably survives longer still, until, ceasing to 
receive any reflex vibrations from the body, it 
grows gradually weaker in its sense of indi¬ 
vidual guardianship, and so is eventually ab¬ 
sorbed into the group-soul or generic essence 
of the class to which it belongs. This is prob¬ 
ably what happens in the case of animals for 
want of any higher vivifying principle, and 
would be the same with us were it not for the 
fact of having such a higher principle. In 
our case I should imagine that the influx of 
etheric waves, received from the thought ac¬ 
tion of the mind, would have the effect of con¬ 
tinuing to impress the Vital Soul with a sense 
of individuality, in terms of its own plane, 


152 The Law and the Word 

which would prevent it from being absorbed 
into the group-soul so long as the vital current 
from the mind continued’ to reach it. But 
eventually that current would cease to reach 
it, and in some cases, because the individual 
mind that governed it would gradually realize 
that its connection with the physical plane had 
ceased, and in others, because through a higher 
illumination the mind had, of its own volition, 
turned its thought in another direction. In 
either case, on the ceasing of the influx of that 
vitalizing current, the Vital Soul of the human 
being would likewise be absorbed into the Cos¬ 
mic Soul, or Anima Mundi. 

How long the processes of the disintegration 
of the etheric body, and absorption of the vital 
soul may take, is a question on which I can 
offer no opinion beyond saying that certain 
psychic phenomena suggest that in some cases 
they may take a long period of time. But for 
the reasons I have now given, it appears to me 
that the permanently surviving factor is the 
thinking mind which is our real self, and is pos¬ 
itively our centre of consciousness after the 
physical body has been put off. 

By the facts of the case its consciousness is 
no longer affected by vibrations received from 


Death and Immortality 153 

the physical body; and therefore, to the extent 
to which our idea of life has been centred in 
that body, we shall feel its loss. If our motto 
has been “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die ” we shall feel very dead indeed — a liv¬ 
ing death, a consciousness of being cut off from 
all that constituted our enjoyment of life — a 
thirst for the satisfaction of our customary 
ideas, which we have no power to quench; and, 
in proportion as our habitual mode of thought 
is raised above that lowest level, so will our 
sense of loss be less. Then, by the same Law, 
if our habitual mode of thought is turned to¬ 
wards pure, beautiful, and helpful ideals, we 
shall feel no loss at all, for we shall carry our 
own ideals with us, and, I hope, see them more 
clearly by reason of their disentanglement from 
mundane considerations. In what precise way 
we may then be able to work out our ideals I 
will not now stop to discuss. What we want 
first is a reasonable theory, based upon the 
principle of that universal Law which is only 
varied in its actions by the conditions under 
which it works; so, instead of speculating as 
to precise details, we may generalize the ques¬ 
tion of how we can work out the good ideals 
which we carry over with us, and put it this 


154 


The Law and the Word 


way: — Our ideas are embodied in thoughts; 
thoughts start trains of etheric waves, which 
waves induce reciprocal action whenever they 
meet with a receiver capable of vibrating 
synchronously with them, and so eventually the 
thought becomes a fact, and our helpful and 
beautiful ideal becomes a work of power, 
whether in this world or in any other. 

Now it is to the forming of such ideals that 
the Bible, from first to last is trying to lead 
us. From first to last it is working upon one 
uniform principle, that the Thought is the 
Word, that the Word sets in motion the Law, 
and that when the Law is set in motion it acts 
with mathematical precision. The Bible is a 
handbook of instruction for the use of our 
Creative Power of Thought, and this is the se¬ 
quence which it follows — one definite method, 
so fundamental in its nature, that it applies 
equally to the making of a packing-case or the 
making of a solar system. 

Now we have formed a generalized concep¬ 
tion, based on this universal method, of the sort 
of consciousness we are likely to have when we 
pass out of the physical body. Then our 
thought naturally passes on to the question 
what will happen after this? 


Death and Immortality 155 

It is here that some theory of the reconstitu¬ 
tion of the physical body appears to me to 
hold a most important place in the order of 
our evolution. Let us try to trace it out on 
the general lines of the Creative Power of 
Thought indicated above, the keynote to which 
is that the Law is specialized by the Word, 
and cannot of itself bring out the infinite pos¬ 
sibilities contained in it without such special¬ 
izing, just as in all scientific development of 
ordinary life. The clue to the whole question 
is, that our place in the Universal Order is to 
develop the infinite resources of the Original 
Life and Substance into actual facts. “ Na¬ 
ture unaided fails.” The Personal Factor 
must co-operate with the Impersonal, alike for 
setting up an electric bell, or for the further¬ 
ance of cosmic evolution; and the reason it is 
so is, because it could not possibly be other¬ 
wise. 

If now we start by recognizing this as our 
necessary place in the Progressive Order of 
the Universe, I think it will help us to form 
a reasonable theory as to the reconstruction of 
the body. First of all, why have we any physi¬ 
cal body at all? As a matter of fact we have 
one, and no amount of transcendental philoso- 


156 The Law and the Word 

phizing will alter the fact, and so we may con¬ 
clude that there is some reason for it. We 
have seen the truth of the maxim “ Omne 
vivum ex vivo,” and therefore that all par¬ 
ticular forms of life are differentiations of the 
one Basic Life. This means a localizing of 
the Life-Principle in individual centres. The 
formation of a centre implies condensation; for 
where there is no condensation the Energy, 
whether electricity or Life, is simply dispersed 
and achieving no purpose. Therefore dis¬ 
tinctness from the undifferentiated Original 
Life is a necessity of the case. Consequently 
the higher the degree of Consciousness of In¬ 
dividuality, the greater must be the Conscious¬ 
ness of Distinctness of Personality. 

We say of a “ wobbly ” sort of person: 
“ That fellow is no use, you can’t depend on 
him.” We say of a person whose ideas, in¬ 
tentions, and methods are subject to continual 
variations under all sorts of outside influences, 
whether of opinions or circumstances, that he 
has “ no backbone,” meaning that he is in 
want of individuality. He has no real thought 
of his own, and so has no Word of Power by 
which to co-operate with the Law; therefore, 
to the extent to which this is the case with any 


Death and Immortality 157 

of us, we are of no use in furthering the un- 
foldment of Evolution, whether in ourselves or 
anywhere else. 

Now we talk a lot about Evolution or the un¬ 
folding, but we seem often not to realize that 
there must be something to unfold; and that 
therefore In-v olution, or the concentration of 
the Life-principle, must be a condition prece¬ 
dent to its E-volution. This process of Invo¬ 
lution must therefore be a process of gradually 
increasing concentration of the Life-principle, 
by association with denser and denser modes 
of the Universal Substance. Then, on the 
principle of Vibration, the less dense the sub¬ 
stance in which the Life is immersed, the more 
it must be subject to being stirred by vibratory 
currents other than those produced by the con¬ 
scious action of the Ego, or inherent Life, of 
the individuality that is being formed. 

But “ the Sum of the Vibrations in anything 
determines the mode, power , and direction of 
its action therefore, the less the Ego be con¬ 
centrated through association with a dense ve¬ 
hicle, the more “ wobbly ” it must be, and con¬ 
sequently the less able to take any effective 
part in the further work of Creation. But in 
’ proportion as the Ego builds up an Individual 


158 The Law and the Word 

Will, the more it gets out of the “ wobbly ” 
state — or, to refer once more to the idea of 
etheric waves — it becomes able to select what 
vibrations it will receive, and what vibrations 
it will send out. 

The involution of the Ego into the physical 
body, such as we at present know it, is there¬ 
fore a necessity of the case, if any effective 
Individuality is to be brought into existence, 
and the work of Creation carried on instead 
of being cut short, not for want of material, 
but for want of workmen capable of using the 
tools of the builders’ craft — the Law as 
“ Strength ” and the Word as “ Beauty.” 

The Descending Arc of the Circle of Being 
is therefore that of the Involution of Spirit 
into denser and denser modes of Substance,— 
a process called in technical language by the 
Greek name “ Eleusin,” and the process con¬ 
tinues until a point is reached where Spirit and 
Substance are in equal balance, which is where 
we are now. Then comes the tug of war. 
Which of the two is to predominate? They 
are the Expansive and Constrictive primal ele¬ 
ments, the “ rouah ” and “ hoshech ” of the 
Hebrew Genesis. 

If the Constrictive element be allowed to go 


Death and Immortality 159 

further than giving necessary form to the Ex¬ 
pansive element, it imprisons the latter. The 
condensation becomes too dense for the Ego 
to receive or send forth vibrations according 
to its free will, and so the Individuality be¬ 
comes lost. If the condensation process be not 
carried far enough, no Individuality can be 
built up, and if it be carried too far, no Indi¬ 
viduality can emerge; so in both cases we get 
the same result that there is no one to speak 
the Word of Power without which “ Nature 
unaided fails.” 

Thus we are now exactly at the bottom of 
the Circle of Being. We have completed the 
Descending Arc and reached the point where 
the realization of the Distinctness of Conscious 
Individuality enables us to choose our own line, 
whether that of progressing through the stages 
of the Ascending Arc of Being, or of falling 
out from the living Circle of Progression, at 
least for a period, into what is sometimes 
mystically spoken of as “the Moon,” or (in 
descending order) the “ Eighth Sphere,” and 
which is called in Scripture “ The Outer Dark¬ 
ness,”— the rigidity which stops the action of 
Life. 

Therefore it is with regard to this stage of 


160 The Law and the Word 

our career that the Bible lays so much stress 
on the conflict between the Spirit and the 
Flesh — it is a fact in the course of our evolu¬ 
tion, and the purpose of the Bible is to teach 
us how to move forward along the Ascending 
Arc of the Circle of Being, so as to build up 
individualities which will be able to use the 
tools of Intelligence and Will in the great work 
of Evolution, both Personal and Cosmic. 

Now what is shown diagrammatically as the 
Ascending Arc of the Circle of Life is the Re¬ 
turn from its lowest point, or the Full Con - 
sciousness of Personal Distinctness, gained 
through the Material Body, back to its highest 
point or the Originating Life itself. This is 
the truth embodied in the parable of the Prod¬ 
igal Son. It is a Cosmic truth, and this return 
journey is technically called by the Green name 
“ Anaktorion.” It is the Rising-again, that is 
from matter to Spirit, and is the Resurrection 
Principle. 

But what is accomplished by the journey of 
the Ego round the Circle of Life? 

A New Centre of Intelligence and volition is 
established; from this the Creative Word of 
Power can be spoken — a Complete Man has 
been brought into existence, who can take a 


Death and Immortality 161 

free and intelligent part in the further work 
of Creation, by his understanding of the in¬ 
teraction between the Law and the Word. 
The “ Volume of the Sacred Law ” lies open 
before us, and the Vibratory Power of the 
Word to give effect to it is the “ Blazing Star ” 
that illuminates its contents, and so we become 
fellow-workers with the Great Architect of the 
Universe. 

For these reasons it appears to me that our 
self-recognition in a physical body is a neces¬ 
sary step in our growth. But why should the 
reconstruction of a physical body be either 
necessary or desirable ? The answer is as 
follows: 

Obviously self-recognition is the necessary 
basis for all use of those powers of selection 
and volition by which the Impersonal Law is 
to be specialized so as to bring to light its limit¬ 
less potentialities; and self-recognition means 
the recognition of our personal Distinctness 
from our environment. Therefore it must al¬ 
ways mean the possessing of a body as a ve¬ 
hicle, by means of which to act upon that en¬ 
vironment, and to receive the corresponding 
reaction from it. In other words it must al¬ 
ways be a body constituted in terms of the 


162 The Law and the Word 

plane upon which we are functioning. But it 
does not follow that we should always be tied 
down to one plane. 

On the contrary, the very conception of the 
power of the Word to specialize the action of 
the Law, implies the power of functioning on 
any plane we choose; but always subject to the 
Law, that if we want to act on any particular 
plane in propria persona, and not merely by in¬ 
fluencing some other agent, we can only do so 
by assuming a body in terms of the nature of 
that plane. Therefore, if we want to act on 
the physical plane, we must put on a physical 
body. But when we have fully grasped the 
Power of the Word we cannot be tied to a 
body. We shall no longer regard it as com¬ 
posed of so many chemical elements, but we 
shall see beyond them into the real primary 
etheric substance of which they are composed, 
and so by our volition shall be able to put the 
physical body on or off at pleasure,— that at 
least is a quite logical deduction from what we 
have learnt in the preceding pages. 

Seen in this light the “ Resurrection Body ” 
is not the old body resuscitated, but a new 
body, just as real and tangible as the old one, 
only not subject to any of its disabilities,— no 




Death and Immortality 163 

longer a limitation, but the ever ready instru¬ 
ment for any work we may desire to do upon 
the physical plane. 

But perhaps you will say, “ Why should we 
want to have anything more to do with the 
physical plane? surely we have had enough of 
it already! ” Yes; in its old sense of limita¬ 
tion; but not in the new sense of a world of 
glorious possibilities, a new field for our crea¬ 
tive activities; not the least of which is the 
helping of those who are still in those lower 
stages which we have already passed through. 

I think if we realize the position of the 
Fully Risen Man, we shall see that he is not 
likely to turn his back upon the Earth as a 
rotten, old thing. Therefore a new physical 
body is a necessary part of his equipment. 

If, then, we take it as a general principle, 
that for self-recognition upon any plane a body 
in terms of that plane is a necessity, this will 
throw some light on the Bible narrative of our 
Lord’s appearances after his Resurrection. It 
is noteworthy that he himself lays stress on the 
body as an integral part of the individuality. 
When the disciples thought they had seen an 
apparition he said: “ Handle me and see that 

it is I myself and not a spirit, for a spirit hath 


164 The Law and the Word 

not flesh and bones as ye see I have” (Luke 
xxiv, 39). This very clearly states that the 
spirit without a corresponding body is not the 
complete “ I myself ”; yet from the same nar¬ 
rative we gather that the solid body in which 
he appeared is able to pass through closed 
doors, and to be disintegrated and re-integrated 
at will. Now on the electronic theory of the 
constitution of matter which I have spoken 
of in the earlier part of this book, there is noth¬ 
ing impossible in this; on the contrary it is 
only the known Law of synchronous vibration 
carried into those further ranges of wave¬ 
lengths which, though not yet produced by lab¬ 
oratory experiment, are unavoidably recog¬ 
nized by the mathematicians. 

In this way then the Resurrection of the 
Body appears to me to be the legitimate ter¬ 
mination of our present stage of existence. 
What further developments may follow, who 
shall say? for we must remember that the end 
of one series is always the commencement of 
another — that is the doctrine of the Octave. 
But this is far enough to look forward in all 
conscience. As to when the completion of our 
present stage of evolution will be attained, it 
is impossible even to hazard a guess; but that 


Death and Immortality 165 

the individual attainment of such a Resurrec¬ 
tion is not dependent on any particular date in 
the world’s history, is clearly the teaching of 
Scripture. When Martha said to Jesus that 
she knew her brother would rise again “ at the 
last day,” he ignored the question of “ the last 
day,” and said “ I am the Resurrection and the 
Life” (St. John xi, 25); and similarly St. 
Paul puts it forward as a thing to be attained 
(Ph. iii, 15). It is not a resurrection of the 
dead but from among the dead that St. Paul 
is aiming at — not an “ anastasis ton nekron,” 
but an “ anastasis ek ton nekron.” 

Doubtless there are other passages of Scrip¬ 
ture which speak of a general resurrection, 
which to some will be a resurrection to con¬ 
demnation (St. John v, 29), a resurrection to 
shame and everlasting contempt (Dan. xii, 2). 
This is a subject upon which I will not attempt 
to enter — I have a great many things to learn, 
and this is one of them; but if the Bible state¬ 
ments regarding resurrection are to be taken 
as a whole, these passages cannot be passed 
over without notice. On the other hand the 
Bible statements regarding individual resur¬ 
rection are there also, and the general princi¬ 
ple on which they are based becomes clear 



166 The Law and the Word 

when we see the fundamental relation between 
the Law and the Word. Only we must re¬ 
member that the Word that can thus set in 
motion the Law of Life, and make it triumph 
over the Law of Death, cannot be spoken by 
the limited personality which only knows itself 
as John Smith or Mary Jones. We must at¬ 
tain a larger personality than that, before we 
can speak the Word. And this larger person¬ 
ality is not just John Smith or Mary Jones 
magnified; that is the mistake we are all so apt 
to fall into. Mere magnification will not do it. 
A square will continue to be a square however 
large you make it; it will never become a cir¬ 
cle. But on the other hand, there is such a 
thing as stating the area of a circle in the form 
of a square; and when we learn to regard our 
square as not existing on its own account, but 
as an expression of the circle in another form, 
our attention will be directed to the circle first, 
as the generating figure, and then to the square 
as a particular mode of expressing the same 
area. If we look at it in this way we shall 
never mistake the square for the circle, but 
we shall see that as the circle grows, the cor¬ 
responding square will grow with it. It is this 
dependence of the square on the circle that 


Death and Immortality 167 

makes all the difference, and makes it a living, 
growing square. For the true circle repre¬ 
sents Infinitude. It is not bounded by a lim¬ 
iting circumference as in the merely symbolic 
geometrical figure, but is rather represented by 
the impulse which generates an ever widening 
circle of electro-magnetic waves; and when we 
realize this, our square becomes a living thing. 
The “ Word ” that we speak with this recogni¬ 
tion is no longer ours, but His who sent us — 
the expression, on the plane of individuality, 
of the Thought that sent us into existence and 
so it is the “ Word of Life.” This is the true 
Resurrection of the Individual. 


CHAPTER VIII 


Transferring the Burden 

The more we grow into a clear perception 
of what is really meant by “ Squaring the Cir¬ 
cle,^ the freer we shall find ourselves from 
the burden of anxiety. We shall rise to a 
larger generalization of the Law of Cause and 
Effect. We shall learn in all things to reach 
out to First Cause as operating through the 
channels of secondary causation,—“ causa 
causas ” as producing, and therefore controll¬ 
ing “ causa causata ”— and so we cease to 
worry about secondary causes. On the plane 
of the lower personality we see certain facts, 
and argue that they are bound to produce cer¬ 
tain results, which would be quite true if we 
really saw all the facts; or, again, allowing that 
in any particular case we actually did see all 
the facts as they now exist, we can either 
deny the operation of First Cause, or recognize 
its infinite capacity for creating new facts. 

168 


Transferring the Burden 


169 


Therefore, whatever may be the nature of our 
anxiety, we should endeavour to dispel it by 
the consideration that there may be already ex¬ 
isting other facts we do not know of, which 
will produce a different result from the one 
we fear, and that in any case there is a power 
which can produce new facts in answer to our 
appeal to it. 

But I can imagine some one saying to us, 
“ You bumptious little midget, do you think 
First Cause is going to trouble Itself about 
you and your petty concerns? Do you not 
know that First Cause works by universal Law, 
and makes no exceptions ? ” Well, I would 
not have written this book if I did not sup¬ 
pose that First Cause works by universal Law, 
and it is just because It does so that I believe 
It will work for me and my concerns. The 
Law makes no exceptions, but it can be spe¬ 
cialized through the power of the Word. 
Then our sceptic says, “ What, do you think 
your word can do that?” To which I reply, 
“ It is not my word because I am not using it 
in my lower personality, as John Smith or 
Mary Jones, but in that higher personality 
which recognizes only one all-embracing Per¬ 
sonality and itself as included in that.” 


170 The Law and the Word 

Which comes first, the Law or the Word? 

The distribution of the solar systems in 
space, the localization of the Spirit in specific 
areas of cosmic activity, proclaims the start¬ 
ing of all manifestation through the “ Word.” 
Then the operation of Law follows with mathe¬ 
matical precision, just as when we write 
2 X 2 we cannot avoid getting 4 as the result 
— only there is no reason why we should not 
write 2X3 and so get 6 instead of 4. Let 
it be borne in mind that the Law flows from 
the Word, and not vice versa, and you have 
got the clue to the enigma of Life. 

How far we shall be able to make practical 
use of this clue depends, of course, on our ac¬ 
ceptance of its principle. 

The Directing Power of the Word is inher¬ 
ent in the Word, and we cannot alter it. It is 
the Law of the Law, and so, like any other 
law, it cannot be broken, but its action can be 
inverted. We cannot deprive the Word of its 
efficacy, but our denial of it as the Word of 
Expansion is equivalent to an affirmation of it 
as the Word of Contraction, and so the Law 
acts towards us as a Limitation. But the fault 
is not in the Law, but in the way we use the 
Word. Now if the reader grasps this, he will 


Transferring the Burden 171 

see that the less we trouble ourselves about 
what appear to us to be the visible and calcul¬ 
able causes of things, the freer we must be¬ 
come from the burden of anxiety; and as we 
advance step by step to a clearer recognition 
of the true order of Cause and Effect, so all 
intermediate causes will fade from our view. 
Only the two extremes of the sequence of 
Cause and Effect will remain in sight. First 
Cause, moving as the Word, starting a se¬ 
quence, and the desired result terminating it, 
as the Word taking Form in Fact. The in¬ 
termediate links in the chain will be there, but 
they will be seen as effects, not causes. The 
wider the generalization we thus make, the less 
we shall need to trouble about particulars, 
knowing that they will form themselves by the 
natural action of the Law; and the widest gen¬ 
eralization is therefore, to state not what we 
want to have, but what we want to he. The 
only reason we ever want to have anything, is 
because we think it will help us to be some¬ 
thing — something more than we are now; so 
that the “ having ” is only a link in the chain 
of secondary causes, and may therefore be left 
out of consideration, for it will come of itself 
through the natural workings of the Law, set 


172 


The Law and the Word 


in operation by the Word as First Cause. 
This principle is set forth in the statement of 
the Divine Name given to Moses (Ex. iii, 13- 
14). The Name is simply “I AM ”—it is 
Being, not having — the having follows as a 
natural consequence of the Being; and if it be 
true that we are made in the likeness and image 
of God, that is to say on the same Principle, 
then what is the Law of the Divine nature 
must be the Law of ours also — and as we 
awake to this we become “ partakers of the Di¬ 
vine Nature ” (2 Pet. i, 4). 

What we really want, therefore, is to he 
something — something more than we are 
now; and this is quite right. It is our con¬ 
sciousness of the continually generative im¬ 
pulse of the Eternal Living Spirit, which is the 
fons et origo (fountain and source) of all dif¬ 
ferentiated life working within us for ever 
more and more perfect individual expression 
of all that is in Itself. If the reader remem¬ 
bers what I said at the beginning of this book 
about the Verb Substantive of Being, he will 
see that each of us is in truth a “ Word 
(verbum) of God.” Let not the orthodox 
reader be shocked at this — I am only saying 
what the Bible does. Look up the following 


Transferring the Burden 173 

passages: “ I will write upon him the name 

of my God and my own new name ” (Rev. 
xiii, 12). “ I saw, and behold a lamb stand¬ 

ing on the Mount Zion (note, the word Zion 
means the principle of Life), and with him a 
hundred and forty and four thousand, having 
his name and the name of his Father written 
on their foreheads ” ( Rev. xiv, 1). “ His name 
shall be on their foreheads ” (Rev. xxii, 4). 
Read particularly the whole passage Rev. xix, 
11-16, where we are expressly told that the 
name in question is “ the Word of God ”; and 
that this name is the one put upon those who 
follow their Leader, is shown by the same de¬ 
scription being given of the followers as of the 
Leader. They all ride upon “ white horses,” 
and the “ horse ” is the symbol of the intellect. 
Also in the case of the Leader, the peculiarity 
of his Name is that “ no one knows it but him¬ 
self,” and in Rev. ii, 17, exactly the same thing 
is said of the “ New Name ” to be given “ to 
him that overcometh.” Again, in Isaiah lxii, 
2, “ Thou shalt be called by a new name, which 
the mouth of the Lord shall name ”; and again 
in Num. vi, 27, “ They shall put my name upon 
the children of Israel.” 

Then as the meaning of that Name “ the 


174 The Law and the Word 

Word of God.” In Ps. cxix, 160: “ Thy 

word is true from the beginning/’ and Jesus 
said: “Thy Word is Truth” (John xvii, 
1 7 )- 

This also corresponds with the description in 
Rev. xix, ii-i6 where another name for “ the 
Word of God ” is “ Faithful and True and 
the same metaphor of the Truth “riding into 
action ” is contained in Ps. xlv, 3, 4. “ Gird 

thy sword upon thy thigh, O' most mighty, with 
thy glory and thy majesty; and in thy majesty 
ride prosperously because of Truth.” The 
same symbol of “ riding ” also occurs in Ps. 
Ixviii: “ Extol him that rideth upon the 

heavens,” “ Sing praises to him that rideth 
upon the heaven of heavens which were of old 
(i.e., ah initio); lo, he doth send out his Voice 
and that a mighty Voice ”— and the word 
“ Voice ” is the Hebrew Word “ Kol,” mean¬ 
ing “ Sound ” or “ Word ”— so that here 
again we have the idea of “ The Word ” rid¬ 
ing into action. Once more —" Thou hast 
magnified thy Word above all thy Name ” 
(Ps. cxxxviii, 2), thus repeating the idea of 
the Word as the Name. 

In other passages we have the idea of the 
Word as a Weapon. " The Sword of the 


Transferring the Burden 175 

Spirit which is the Word of God” (Eph. vi, 
17), which answers to the description in Rev¬ 
elations of the Sword proceeding out of the 
mouth of the Word; and we have the same 
metaphor of the Word riding into action in 
Habakkuk iii, 8 and 9. “ Thou didst ride 

upon thine horses and thy chariots of salva¬ 
tion. Thy bow was made quite naked . . . 
even thy Word and similarly those that op¬ 
pose the Word are “ killed with the sword of 
him that sat upon the horse, which sword pro¬ 
ceeded out of his mouth.” 

In other passages we have the Word put be¬ 
fore us as a Defence. “ His Truth shall be 
thy shield and buckler” (Ps. xci, 4); and 
again “ The Name of the Lord is a strong 
tower; the righteous runneth into it and is 
safe ” (Prov. xviii, 10) ; and we have already 
seen that this Name is “ The Word of God ”; 
and similarly in Ps. cxxiv, 8: “ Our help is in 

the name of the Lord, who made heaven and 
earth.” 

Lastly, we get “ the Word ” as the final de¬ 
liverance from all ill; “ Into thy hand I com¬ 
mit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord 
God of Truth” (Ps. xxxi, 5). 

And the reason of all this is because “ His 


176 The Law and the Word 

Truth endureth to all generations ” (Ps. c, 5) ; 
it is everlasting, Changeless Principle. “ By 
the Word of the Lord were the heavens made; 
and all the host of them by the breath of his 
mouth” (Ps. xxxiii, 6), as is also said of the 
Word in the opening of St. John’s Gospel and 
First Epistle. 

Now a careful comparison of these and simi¬ 
lar passages will make it clear that the sequence 
presented to us is as follows: The “ Word ” 
is the passing of the Verb Substantive of Be¬ 
ing into Action. It is always the same in 
Principle, on whatever scale, and therefore ap¬ 
plies to ourselves also, so that each one of us 
is a “ Word of God.” We are this by the 
very essence of our being, and that is why the 
first thing we are told about Man is, that he 
is made in the image and likeness of God. But 
how far any of us will become a really effective 
“ Word,” depends upon our acceptance of the 
New Name which is ready to be bestowed upon 
each one. “To as many as receive him, to 
them gives he power to become Sons of God, 
even to them that believe on his Name ” (John 
1-12). We get the New Name by realizing 
the Truth, which Truth is that we ourselves 


Transferring the Burden lyy 

are included in THE NAME, and that name is 
called “ The Word of God.” 

The meaning of which becomes clear if we 
remember that the spiritual name of anything 
is its “ Noumenon ” or essential being, which 
is manifested through its “ Phenomenon ” or 
outward reproduction in Form; so that the true 
order is first our “ Name ” or essential Being, 
then our “ Word ” or active manifestation of 
this essential Being, then the “ Truth ” or the 
unchangeable Law of Being passing into Mani¬ 
festation— and these three are ONE. Then 
when we see that this is true of ourselves, not 
because of some arbitrary favouritism making 
us exceptions to the human race, but because 
it is the working on the plane of Human Indi¬ 
viduality of the same Power and the same Law 
by which the world has come into existence, 
we can see that we have here a Principle which 
we can trust to work as infallibly as the princi¬ 
ple of Mathematics; and that therefore the de¬ 
sire to become something more than we now 
are is nothing else than the Eternal Spirit of 
Life seeking ever fuller expression. 

The correction which our mode of thinking 
needs therefore is to start with Being, not with 


178 The Law and the Word 

Having, and we may then trust the Having to 
come along in its right order; and if we can 
get into this new manner of thinking, what a 
world of worry it will save us! If we realize 
that the Law flows from the Word, and not 
vice versa, then the Law of attraction must 
work in this manner, and will bring to us all 
those conditions through which we shall be able 
to express the more expanded Being towards 
which we are directing our Word; and as a 
consequence, we shall have no need to trouble 
about forcing particular conditions into exist¬ 
ence — they will grow spontaneously out of the 
seed we have planted. All we have to do now, 
or at any time, is to take the conditions that are 
ready to hand and use them on the lines of the 
sort of “ being ” towards which we are direct¬ 
ing our Thought — use them just as far as 
they go at the time, without trying to press 
them further — and we shall find by experience 
that out of the present conditions thus used 
to-day, more favourable conditions will grow 
in a perfectly natural manner to-morrow, and 
so on, day by day, until, when later on we look 
back, we shall be surprised to find ourselves 
expressing all, and more than all, the sort of 
“ being ” we had thought of. Then, from this 


Transferring the Burden 179 

new stand-point of our being, we shall con¬ 
tinue to go on in the same way, and so on ad 
infinitum , so that our life will become one end¬ 
less progress, ever widening as we go on. 
And this will be found a very quiet and peace¬ 
ful way, free from worry and anxiety, and 
wonderfully effective. It may lead you to 
some position of authority or celebrity; but as 
such things belong to the category of “ Hav¬ 
ing ” and not of “ Being ” they were not what 
you aimed at, and are only by-products of what 
you have become in yourself. They are condi¬ 
tions, and like all other conditions should be 
made use of for the development of still more 
expanded “ being ”; that is to say, you will go 
on working on the more extended scale which 
such a position makes possible to you. But 
the one thing you would not try to do with it 
would be to “ boss the show.” The moment 
you do this you are no longer using the Word 
of the larger Personality, and have descended 
to your old level of the smaller personality, just 
John Smith or Mary Jones, ignorant of your¬ 
selves as being anything greater. It is true 
your Word still directs the operation of the 
Law towards yourself — it always does this — 
but your word has become inverted, and so 


180 The Law and the Word 

calls into operation the Law of Contraction in¬ 
stead of the Law of Expansion. A higher 
position means a wider field for usefulness — 
that is all; and to the extent to which you fit 
yourself for it, it will come to you. So, if 
you content yourself with always speaking in 
your Thought the Creative Word of “ Being ” 
from day to day, you will find it the Way of 
Peace and the Secret of a Happy Life — by 
no means monotonous, for all sorts of unex¬ 
pected interests will be continually opening out 
to you, giving you scope for all the activities 
of which your present degree of “ being ” ren¬ 
ders you capable. You will always find plenty 
to do, and find pleasure in doing it, so you need 
never be afraid of feeling dull. 

But perhaps you will say: 

“ How am I to know that I am not speaking 
my own Word instead of that of the Creative 
Spirit? ” 

Well, the word of the smaller personality is 
always based on the idea of possessing, and 
the Word of the Spirit is always based on the 
idea of Becoming — that is the criterion. And 
also, if we base our speaking of the Word on 
the Promises of Spirit, we may be sure that we 
are on the right track. 




Transferring the Burden 181 

We may be sure of it, because when we come 
to analyze these promises we shall find that 
they are all statements of the Creative Law of 
Being, and the nature of this Law is obvious 
from the facts of the Visible Creation. 

These things are not true because they are 
written in the Bible, but the Bible is true be¬ 
cause these things are written in it. The more 
we examine the Bible Promises, the more they 
will impress themselves upon us as being Prom¬ 
ises according to Law; and since the Law can 
never be broken, we can feel quite secure of 
it, subject to the one condition that we do not 
stop the Law from working to the fulfilment of 
the Promise, by our own inverted use of the 
Word. But if we take the Word of the Prom¬ 
ise and make it our own Word, then we know 
that we are speaking the right Word, which 
will so specialize the action of the Law, as to 
produce the fulfilment of the Promise. Apart 
from the Word there is no Foundation. In all 
other systems we have either Law without Will, 
or Will without Law. 

Then we know that we are not speaking of 
ourselves, but are speaking the Word of the 
Power that sent us into the World. The Law 
alone cannot fulfil the Promises. It is in it- 


The Law and the Word 


182 

self Cosmic and Impersonal, and, as every 
scientific discovery amply demonstrates, it 
needs the co-operation of the Personal Factor 
to bring out its latent possibilities; so that the 
Word is as necessary as the Law for the ful¬ 
filment of the Promises; but if the Word which 
we speak is that of the Creating Spirit, we 
may reckon it as being just as certain in its 
operation as the Law, and the two together 
form an infallible Power. 

But there is one thing we must not forget, 
and this is the Law of Growth. If the Law 
which we plant is the seed, then we must allow 
time for it to grow; we must leave it alone 
and go about our business as usual, and the 
seed we have sown will spring and grow up of 
itself, we know not how, a truth which we 
have been told by the Master himself (Mark 
iv, 26, 29). 

We must not be like children who plant a 
seed one day, and dig it up the next to see 
whether it is growing. Our part is to plant 
the seed, not to make it grow,— the Creative 
Law of Life will do that. It is for this rea¬ 
son that the Bible gives us such injunctions as 
“ Study to be quiet ” (1 Thess. iv, 11). “ He 

that believeth shall not make haste ” (Is. xxviii, 


Transferring the Burden 183 

16). “ In quietness and in confidence shall be 

your strength ” (Is. xxx, 15). To make our¬ 
selves anxious as to whether the Word we have 
planted will fructify is just to dig it up again, 
and then of course it will not grow. 

The fundamental maxim, then, which we 
must always keep in mind is that “ Every crea¬ 
tion carries its own Mathematics along with 
it,” and that therefore “ The Law flows from 
the Word, and not vice versa; and consequently 
" The Word is the Foundation of every cre¬ 
ative series ” whether that series be great or 
small, cosmic or individual, constructive or de¬ 
structive. Every series commences with In¬ 
tention; and remember the exact meaning of 
the Word. It is from the two Latin words 
“ in,” towards, and “ tendere,” to stretch, and 
it therefore means a “ reaching out in a cer¬ 
tain direction.” This “ reaching out in a cer¬ 
tain direction ” is the Conception of ourself as 
arrived at the destination towards which our 
Thought tends, and is therefore the conceiving 
of an idea , and our formulated idea is stated, 
if only mentally, in Words — and the termi¬ 
nation of the series is the realization of the idea 
in actual fact. Therefore it is equally true of 
every series, whether it be the creation of a 


184 The Law and the Word 

lady's blouse or the creation of a world, that 
“ in the Beginning is the Word ”— the Word 
is the Point of Origination. 

Then, since the Word is the Point of Orig¬ 
ination, what is our conception of the best 
thing we can originate with it? There is a 
great variety of opinion as to what is de¬ 
sirable ; and it is only natural and right that it 
should be so, for otherwise we should be with¬ 
out any individuality, which means that we 
should have no real life in us — in fact such a 
world is unthinkable; it would be a world that 
had ceased to move, it would be a dead world. 
So it is the varied conception of “ the Good ” 
that makes the world go on. Uniformity 
means reducing things to one dead level. But 
on the other hand there must be Unity — unity 
of action resulting from unity of purpose, 
otherwise the world logically terminates in in¬ 
ternecine strife. If then the world is to go 
on, it can only be by means of Unity ex¬ 
pressing itself in Variety, and therefore the 
question is: What is the unifying Desire 
which underlies all the varieties of expression? 
It is a very simple one — it is just to ENJOY 
LIVING. Our ideas of an enjoyable life may 
be very various, but that is what we all really 


Transferring the Burden 185 

want; so what we want to get at is: What is 
the basis of an enjoyable life? 

I have no hesitation in saying that the secret 
of enjoying life is to take an interest in it. 
The opposite of Livingness is Deadness, that is, 
inertia and stagnation. Dying of “ ennui ” is 
a very real thing indeed, and if we would not 
die of this malady we must have an interest in 
life that will always keep going on. 

Now for anything to interest us we must 
enter into the spirit of it. If we do not enter 
into the spirit of a game it does not interest 
us; if we do not enter into the spirit of a 
book, it does not interest us, we are bored to 
death with it; and so on with everything. So 
from our own experience we may lay down 
the maxim that “ To enjoy anything we must 
enter into the spirit of it,” and if this be so, 
then, to enjoy the “ Living Quality of Life ” 
we must enter into the Spirit of Life itself. I 
say the “ Living Quality of Life ” so as to 
dissociate it from all ideas of particular condi¬ 
tions ; because what we are trying to get at is 
the fundamental principle of Life which creates 
conditions, and not the reflex of sensations, 
whether physical or mental, which any par¬ 
ticular set of conditions may induce in us for 


186 The Law and the Word 

the time being. In this way we come back to 
the initial proposition with which we started 
— that the origin of everything is only to be 
found in a Universal Ever-Living Spirit, and 
that our own life proceeds from this Spirit in 
accordance with the maxim “ Omne vivum ex 
vivo.” Thus we are logically brought to the 
conclusion that the ultimate Desire of all Hu¬ 
manity is to consciously enter into the Spirit 
of Life as it is in itself, antecedently to all con¬ 
ditions. This is the widest of all generaliza¬ 
tions, and so opens the door to the highest of 
all specializations; for it is a scientific fact, 
that the more widely we can generalize the 
principle of any Law, the more highly we can 
specialize its working. It is only as our con¬ 
ception of it is limited that any Law limits us. 

A principle per se is always undifferentiated, 
and capable of any sort of differentiation into 
particular modes of expression that are not in 
opposition to the principle itself; and it is true 
of the Principle of Life as of all others. 
There is therefore no limit to its expression 
except that which inverts it,— that is to say, 
anything which tends towards Death; and, ac¬ 
cordingly, what we have to avoid is the nega- 


Transferring the Burden 187 

tive mode of Thought, which starts an inverted 
action of the Law, logically resulting in de¬ 
structiveness instead of constructiveness. But 
the mistake we make from not seeing the basic 
principle of the whole thing, is that of looking 
to the conditions to form the Life, instead of 
looking to the Life to form the conditions; and 
therefore what we require is a Standard of 
Measurement for our Thought, by which we 
shall be able to form The Perfect Word which 
will set in motion the Law of Cause and Effect 
in such a manner as to fulfil that Basic Desire 
of Life which is common to all Humanity. 
The Perfect Word must therefore fulfil two 
Conditions — it must have the essential Quality 
of the Undifferentiated Eternal Life, and it 
must have the essential Quality of “ Genus 
Homo/’ It must say with Horace “ Homo 
sum; nihil humani mihi alienum puto” (I 
am Man; I regard nothing human as alien to 
myself). When we think it out carefully, 
there is no escaping the conclusion that this 
must be the essential Quality of the Perfect 
Word we are in search of. It is the final logi¬ 
cal inference from all that we have learnt 
regarding the interaction between Law and 


188 


The Law and the Word 


Personality, that the Perfect Word must com¬ 
bine in itself the Quality of each — it must be 
at once both Human and Divine. 

Of course all my readers know where the de¬ 
scription of such a Word is to be found; but 
what I want them to realize is the way in 
which we have now reached a similar descrip¬ 
tion of the Perfect Word. We have not ac¬ 
cepted it unquestioningly as the teaching of 
a scholastic theology, but have arrived at it by 
a course of careful reasoning from the facts 
of physical Nature and from our experience of 
our own mental powers. This way of getting 
at it makes it really our own. We know what 
we mean by it, and it is no longer a mere tra¬ 
ditional form of words. It is the same with 
everything else; nothing becomes our own by 
being just told about it. 

For instance, if I show an artist a picture, 
and he tells me that a boat in it is half a mile 
away from the spectators, I may accept this on 
his authority, because I suppose he knows all 
about it. But if next day a friend shows me 
a picture of a bit of coast with a fishing-boat 
in the distance, and asks me how far off that 
boat is, I am utterly stumped because I 40 not 
know how the artist was able to judge the dis- 


Transferring the Burden 


189 


tance. But if I understand the principle, I 
give my friend a very fair approximation of 
the distance of the boat. I work it out like 
this. I say: — the immediate foreground of 
the picture shows an amount of detail which 
could not be seen more than twenty yards away, 
and the average size of such details in nature 
shows that the bottom edge of the picture 
must measure about ten yards across. Then 
from experience I know that the average 
length of craft of the particular rigging in the 
picture is, say, about eighty feet, and I then 
measure that this length goes sixteen and a 
half times across the picture on the level where 
the boat is situated, and so I know that a line 
across the picture at this level measures 
80 X i 6 j 4 = 1320 ft.= 440 yards. Then I 
make the calculation: 10 yds. : 440 yds. :: 20 

yds.: the distance required to be ascertained 
440x20 ^ 

-=880 yds. 1760 yds. = 1 mile 

10 

and _ I/6 °— = 880 yds. Therefore I know thal 
2 

the boat in the picture is represented as being 
about half a mile from the spectator. I really 
know the distance and do not merely guess it, 
and I know how I know it. I know it simply 




190 The Law and the Word 

from the geometrical principle that with a given 
angle at the apex of a triangle the length of a 
perpendicular dropped from the apex to the 
base of the triangle will always bear the same 
ratio to the length of the base, whatever the 
size of the triangle may be. In this way I 
know the distance of the boat in the picture 
by combining mathematics and my own obser¬ 
vation of facts — once again to co-operation 
of Law and Personality. Now a familiar 
instance like this shows the difference between 
being told a thing and really knowing it, and 
it is by an analogous method that we have now 
arrived at the conclusion that the Perfect Word 
is a combination of the Human and the Divine. 
We have definite reasons for seeing this as 
the ultimate fact of human development — the 
power to give expression to the Perfect Word 
—,and that this follows naturally from the fact 
of our own existence and that of some orig¬ 
inating source from which we derive it. 

But perhaps the reader will say: How can 
a Word take form as a Person? Well, words 
which do not eventually take form as facts only 
evaporate into thin air, and we cannot con¬ 
ceive the Divine Ideals of Man doin^: this. 
Therefore the expression of the Perfect Word 


Transferring the Burden 191 

on the plane of Humanity must take substance 
in the Form of Humanity. It is not the mani¬ 
festation of any limited personality with all his 
or her idiosyncrasies, but the manifestation of 
the basic principle of Humanity itself common 
to us all. 

To quote Dry den’s words — but in a very 
different sense to that intended in “ Absolom 
and Achitophel,”— such a one must be “ Not 
one, but all Mankind’s epitome.” The mani¬ 
festation must be the Perfect Expression of 
that fundamental Life which is the Root De¬ 
sire in us all, and which is therefore called 
“ The Desire of all nations.” 

Here then we have reached (Haggai ii, 7) 
the foundation fact of Human Personality. 
It is the Eternal “ Will-to-live,” as Schopen¬ 
hauer calls it, which works subconsciously in 
all creation; therefore it is the root from which 
all creation springs. In the atom it becomes 
atomic energy, in the plant it becomes veget¬ 
able life, in the animal it becomes animal life, 
and in man it becomes personal life, and there¬ 
fore, if a Perfect Standard of the Eternal Life 
is to be set before us, it must be in terms of 
Human Personality. 

But* some one will say: Why should we 


192 The Law and the Word 

need such a Standard? The answer is that 
since the working of the Law towards each of 
us is determined by our mode of Thought, we 
require to be guarded against an inverted use 
of the Word. “ Ignorantia Legis nemini ex- 
cusat” (ignorance of the Law does not ex¬ 
cuse you from its operation), is a scientific, 
as well as a forensic maxim, for the Law of 
Cause and Effect can never be altered. Our 
ignorance of the laws of electricity will not 
prevent us from being electrocuted if we get 
into the circuit of some powerful voltage. 

Therefore, because the Law is Impersonal 
and knows no exceptions, and will bring us 
either Life or Death according to the direction 
which we give it by our Word, it is of the 
first importance for us to have a Standard by 
which to measure the Word expressed through 
our own Personality. This is why St. Paul 
speaks of our growing to “ the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ,’' (Eph. iv, 
13) and why we find the symbol of “ Measure¬ 
ment ” so frequently employed in the Bible. 

Therefore, if a great scale of measurement 
for our Word is to be exhibited, it\an only be 
by its presentation in human form. 

Then if the purpose be to establish such a 


Transferring the Burden 193 

standard of measurement, the scale must be ex¬ 
pressed in units of the same denomination as 
that of our own nature — you cannot divide 
miles by amperes — and it is because the scale 
of our potential being is laid out in the same 
denomination as that of the Spirit of Life it¬ 
self that we can avail ourselves of the stand¬ 
ard of “ the Word made Flesh/’ 

When this is clearly seen it removes those 
intellectual difficulties which so many feel with 
regard to the doctrine of the Atonement. If 
we want to avail ourselves of the Bible Prom¬ 
ises on the basis of the Bible teaching, we can¬ 
not throw the teaching overboard. As I have 
said before, if a doctrine is to be rightly in¬ 
terpreted, it must be interpreted as a whole, 
and in one form or another the doctrine of the 
Atonement is the pivot point of the whole 
Bible. To omit it is like trying to play “ Ham¬ 
let ” with Hamlet left out, and you may put 
your Bible out on the rubbish-heap. How, 
then, does the Atonement come in? 

Here are the usual intellectual difficulties. 
To whom is the sacrifice offered? To God or 
to the Devil? If it be to the Devil, then the 
Devil is a greater power than God. If it be 
to God, then how can a God who demands a 


194 The Law and the Word 

sacrifice of blood be Love ? And in either case 
how can guilt be transferred from one person 
to the other? 

Now as a matter of fact none of these ques¬ 
tions arise. They are beside the real point at 
issue, which is: How can we so combine the 
Personal action of the Word with the Imper¬ 
sonal action of the Law, as to make the Law 
become to us the Law of Life instead of the 
Law of Death (Rom. viii, 2) ? 

Let us recur to the principles which we have 
worked out. The Law flows from the Word 
and not vice versa — it acts for good or ill ac¬ 
cording to the Quality of the Word which calls 
it into action. Therefore to get the Law of 
Life we must speak the Word of Life. Then, 
on the principle of “ Omne vivum ex vivo,” 
the Word of Fundamental Basic Life, which is 
not subject to conditions because it is ante¬ 
cedent to all conditions, can only be spoken 
through consciousness of participating in the 
Eternal Life which is the “ fons et origo ” of 
all particular being. There fore\to be able to 
speak this Word we must have a foundation of 
assurance that we are in no way separated from 
the Eternal Life, and since this foundation is 
required for all men, it must be broad enough 


Transferring the Burden 195 

to accommodate all grades of perceptions. 

Theologically the separation from the Eter¬ 
nal Life is said to be caused by “ Sin.” But 
what do we mean by “ Sin ” ? 

We can only judge of what a thing is by 
what it does; and so, if “ Sin ” is that which 
prevents the inflowing of the Eternal Life, 
which we know is the root of our individual 
being, then it must be the transgression of the 
inherent Law of our own Being. The truth is 
that we live simultaneously in two worlds, the 
visible and the invisible, just as trees draw 
their life from the earth beneath and from 
the air and light above, and the transgression 
consists in limiting ourselves only to the lower 
world, and thereby cutting ourselves off from 
the essential part of our own life, that which 
really lives. 

We do not realize the true function of the 
three lower principles of our nature, viz.: 
Vital Spirit, etheric body, and outward form; 
the function of which is to give concentration 
to the current of spiritual life flowing from 
the Eternal Spirit, and thus enable the undif¬ 
ferentiated Life to differentiate itself into In¬ 
dividual Consciousness, which will be able to 
specialize the action of the Law into higher 


196 The Law and the Word 

manifestations than it can produce without the 
co-operation of Personality. 

On the analogy of Ohm’s Law our error is 
making our “ R ” so rigid that it ceases to be a 
conductor, and so no current is delivered and 
no work done. This is the true nature of sin, 
and it is this opposition of our R to E. M. F. 
or Eternal Motive Force that has to be re¬ 
moved. We have to realize the true function 
of our R, as the channel through which the 
E. M. F. is enabled to carry on its work. 
When we awake to the fact that our true place 
in the Order of the Universe is to be fellow- 
workers with God in carrying on the work of 
Creation, then we see that hitherto we have en¬ 
tirely missed the purpose of our calling, and 
have misused the Divine image in which we 
were created; and therefore we want an as¬ 
surance that our past errors will not stand in 
the way of our future advance into continually 
fuller participation in the Divine Creative 
Work, which, in virtue of o\Xr true nature 
should be our rightful inheritance. 

That our future destiny is to actually take 
an individual part, however small, in guiding 
the great work of Evolution, may not be evi¬ 
dent to us in the earlier stages of our awaken- 


Transferring the Burden 197 

mg; but what is clear as a matter of feeling, 
but not yet intellectually, is, that in some way 
or other we have been cutting ourselves off 
from the Great Source of Light, and that what 
we therefore want, is to be re-united to it. 
What is wanted, then, is something which will 
give us a firm ground of assurance that we are 
re-united to it, and that that something must 
be of such a nature as never to lose anything 
of its efficiency at any stage of our progress — 
it must cover the whole ground. 

Now, if we think deeply upon this ques¬ 
tion, we shall gradually come to see that this 
expansive quality is to be found in the doc¬ 
trine of the Atonement. It meets all the needs 
of our spiritual nature in a way that no other 
theory does, and responds to every stage of our 
progress. There is only one thing that will 
prevent it working, and that is, saying that we 
have no need of it. That is why St. John 
said, that if we say we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 
i, 8). But the more we come into the light 
of Truth, and realize that sin is everything 
that is not in accordance with the Law of our 
own essential being as related to the Eternal 
Life, the more we shall see, not only that we 


198 The Law and the Word 

have transgressed the Law in the past, but also 
that even now we are very far from completely 
fulfiling it; and the more light we get the more 
clearly we shall see this to be the case. There¬ 
fore, whatever may be the stage of our mental 
development, the assurance which we all need 
for the basis of our new life is that of the re¬ 
moval of sin — the sins of the past, and the 
daily errors of the present. We may form va¬ 
rious theories, each to our own satisfaction, 
as to how this takes place. For instance we 
may argue that, since “ the Word ” is the un¬ 
differentiated potential of Humanity, every hu¬ 
man soul is included in the Self-offering of 
Christ, and that in Him we ourselves suffered 
on the Cross. Or we may say that our con¬ 
fession that such an offering is needed amounts 
to our participation in it. Or we may say 
with St. Paul that, as in Adam all are sinners, 
so in Christ all are made free from sin (1 Cor. 
xv, 22). That is, taking Adam and Christ as 
the representatives of two ofders of men. Or 
we may fall back on the statement “ Sacrifice 
and burnt offerings Thou wouldst not ” (Ps. 
xl, 6), and on Jesus’ own explanation of his 
death, that He offered himself in testimony to 
the Truth — that is, that the Eternal Life will 


Transferring the Burden 199 

no more exercise a retrospective vengeance 
upon us for our past misunderstanding of It, 
than would electricity or any other force. We 
may explain the modus operandi of the great 
offering in any of these ways, for the Scrip¬ 
ture presents it in all of them — but the great 
thing is to accept it; for by the nature of our 
mental constitution, such an acceptance, 
whether with or without an intellectual expla¬ 
nation, affords the assurance which we stand 
in need of; and building upon the Foundation 
we can safely rear the edifice of our future de¬ 
velopment. 

Also it affords us a continual safeguard in 
all the further stages of our evolution. As our 
psychic consciousness increases, we become 
more and more responsive to psychic stimulus 
whether that stimulus proceed from a good or 
evil influence; and therefore the recognition of 
our Redemption in Christ surrounds us with a 
protecting barrier, through which no evil spirit 
or malign influence can pass; so that, resting 
upon this Truth, we need never be in fear of 
any such invasion, but shall at all times be 
clothed with the whole armour of God (Eph. 
vi, 11). 

From whatever point of view we regard it, 


200 


The Law and the Word 


we therefore find in the One Offering once 
made for the sin of the whole world, a stand¬ 
point such as is provided by no other teach¬ 
ing, whether religious or philosophical; and we 
shall see on examination that it is not an arbi¬ 
trary decree for which we can give no account, 
but that it is based on the psychological con¬ 
stitution of man — a provision so perfectly 
adapted to our requirements at every stage of 
our evolution, that we can only attribute it to 
the Divine Wisdom acting through One, who 
by Perfect Love, thus willingly offered him¬ 
self, in order to provide the Foundation of 
« complete assurance for all who recognize their 
need of it. 

On this basis, then, of reunion with the 
Eternal Source of Life, all the Promises of 
the Bible are found to be according to Law — 
that is, according to the inherent Law of our 
Being; so that, in the laying of this Founda¬ 
tion, we find the supreme manifestation of the 
interaction between the Law and the Word, 
which, when its significance is apprehended, 
opens out vistas of limitless possibilities to the 
individual and to the race. 

But the race, as a whole, is yet very far from 
apprehending this, and for the most part has 


Transferring the Burden 201 

no perception of spiritual causation. Where 
some dim perception of spiritual causation is 
beginning to emerge, it is very frequently in¬ 
verted, because people only apprehend it as 
giving them an additional power of exercising 
compulsion over their fellow-men, and thus de¬ 
priving them of that individuality which it is 
the one purpose of Evolution to develop. This 
is because people do not look beyond the three 
lower principles of life, those principles which 
animals have in common with man; and conse¬ 
quently the higher principle of mind, which 
distinguishes man, is brought down to the lower 
level, so that the man is distinguished from 
the beast only by the possession of intellectual 
faculties, which by their perversion make him 
not merely a beast, but a devil of a beast. 
Therefore the recognition of psychic powers, 
when not safeguarded by the higher principles 
of Truth, plunges man even deeper into dark¬ 
ness than does a simple materialism; and so 
the two go hand in hand on the downward 
path. There is abundant evidence that this is 
increasingly the case at the present day; and 
therefore it is that the Bible Promises culmin¬ 
ate in the Promise of the return of Him who 
offered himself in order to lay the foundation 


202 


The Law and the Word 


of Peace. As I have said before, we must 
either take the Bible as a whole, or reject it 
entirely. We cannot pick and choose what 
pleases us, and refuse what does not. No legal 
document could be treated in this way; and in 
like manner the Bible is one great whole, or 
else it is just—“ skittles.” 

Therefore, if that Divine “ Word ” was 
manifested to save the world from destruction, 
by opening the way for the individual through 
recognition of his true relation to God, then 
it is only a reasonable carrying out of the same 
thought that, when the bulk of mankind fail 
to realize the beneficent use of these powers, 
and persist in using them invertedly, the s ame 
Being should again appear to save the race 
from utter self-destruction, but not by the 
same method, for that would be impossible. 

The individual method is that of individual 
self-recognition in the light of Truth; but that 
cannot be forced upon any one. The head¬ 
long downward career of the race as a whole 
cannot therefore be stopped vi et armis, and 
this can only be done by first letting it have a 
bitter experience of what intellect, depraved 
to the service of the Beast in Man, leads to, 
and then forcibly restraining those who persist 



Transferring the Burden 203 

in this madness. Therefore a Second Coming 
of the Divine Man is a logical sequence to the 
first, and equally logical, this Second Coming 
must be as One who will rule the nations with 
irresistible power; so that men, reflecting upon 
the evils of the past, and enquiring into their 
cause, may be led to see that cause in the in¬ 
verted action of the Law of their own being, 
and may therefore learn so to renew their 
thoughts in accordance with the Divine 
Thought as to bring them into the glorious 
liberty of the Sons of God. 

This, then, is the Promise we have to look 
forward to at the present day, and though it 
might not be wise to speculate as to the precise 
time and manner of its fulfilment, there can be 
no doubt as to the nature of the general princi¬ 
ples involved; and I trust the reader has at 
least learned from this book that principles un¬ 
fold themselves with unfailing accuracy, 
though it depends on our Word, or mental at¬ 
titude, in what way their unfoldment will af¬ 
fect us personally. 

For such reasons as these, it appears to me, 
that the current objections to the doctrine of 
Atonement are entirely beside the mark. They 
miss the whole point of the thing. Punish- 


204 The Law and the Word 

ment for Sin? Of course there is punishment 
for sin so long as it is persisted in. It is the 
natural working of the Law of Cause and 
Effect. Forgiveness of sin? Of course there 
is forgiveness of sin as soon as, through knowl¬ 
edge, we make a right use of the Law of our 
own Being. It could not be otherwise. It is 
the natural working of the Law of Cause and 
Effect. 

“ This is the covenant that I will make with 
them after those days, saith the Lord, I will 
put my laws into their hearts, and in their 
minds will I write them; and their sins and 
iniquities will I remember no more ” (Heb. x, 
16); and similarly in Jer. xxxi, 32, from 
which the writer of the Epistles to the He¬ 
brews quotes this. “ Now the Lord is the 
Spirit ” (2 Cor. iii, 17, R. V.), i.e., the Orig¬ 
inating Spirit of life, and therefore “ my 
laws ” means the inherent Law of the Orig¬ 
inating Principle of Being, so that here we 
have a plain statement that the realization of 
the True Law of our Being ipso facto results 
in the cancelling of all our past errors. When 
once we see the principle of it the whole se¬ 
quence becomes perfectly plain. 

There is nothing arbitrary in all this. It re- 


Transferring the Burden 205 

suits naturally from a New mode of Thought 
producing a New order of Consciousness; and 
it is written that “ if any man be in Christ 
he is a new creature ” or, as it says in the 
margin, “ a new creation * (2 Cor. v, 17), and 
on the principle that “every Creation carries 
its own mathematics with it,” every such man 
has passed from the Law of Death into the 
Law of Life. The full fruition may not yet 
be visible — we must allow for the Law of 
Growth — but the Principle is in him and has 
become the central, generating point of his 
consciousness, and is-therefore bound, sooner 
or later, to develop into perfect manifestation 
by the Law of its own nature. If the Princi¬ 
ple be accepted it will work all the same, 
whether we accept it by simple trust in the 
written Word, or whether we analyze the 
grounds of our trust; just as an electric bell 
will ring when you press the button, whether 
you are an electrical engineer or not. But 
there will be this difference, that if you are an 
electrical engineer you will see the principle 
implied in the ringing of the bell, and you will 
find in it the promise of infinite possibilities 
which it is open to you to develope; and in 
like manner, the more clearly you see the rela- 


206 The Law and the Word 

tion which necessarily exists between yourself 
and the All-Originating Living Spirit, the more 
clear it will become to you, that this relation 
opens up an endless vista of boundless po¬ 
tentialities which can never be exhausted. 
This is the true nature of the Bible Promises; 
they were not made by some external Deity 
about whose ideas we can never have any cer¬ 
tainty, but by the Indwelling God, who is at 
once the Life, the Law, and the Substance of 
all things, and therefore they are Promises 
according to Law, containing in themselves the 
principle of their own fulfilment. 

But, as I trust the reader is now convinced, 
the Law can fulfil the Promise which is latent 
in it only by the co-operation of the Word, 
that is, the Personal Factor which provides the 
necessary conditions for the Law to work un¬ 
der; and therefore, if the Promise is to be ful¬ 
filled, we must meet the All-originating Life, 
the “ Premium mobile/’ not only on the Plane 
of Law, but on the Plane of Personality also. 
This becomes evident if we consider that this 
Originating Life must be entirely undifferen¬ 
tiated in Itself; for otherwise it could not be 
the origin of all differentiated modes of Life 
and Energy. As long as we find differentia- 


207 


Transferring the Burden 

tion, on however wide a scale, we have not ar¬ 
rived at First Cause. There will still be some¬ 
thing further back, out of which the differen¬ 
tiations have proceeded; and it is this “ Some¬ 
thing ” which is at the back of “ Everything ” 
that we are in search of. Therefore the Orig¬ 
inating Spirit must be absolutely undifferen¬ 
tiated, and consequently the Personal Factor in 
ourselves must be the differentiation into in¬ 
dividuality of a Quality eternally subsisting 
in the All-Originating Undifferentiated Spirit. 

Then, since our individual differentiation of 
this Quality must depend on the mode of our 
recognition of it, it follows that a Standard of 
Measurement is needed, and the Standard is 
presented to us in the form of the Personality 
around whom the whole Bible centres, and 
who, as the Standard of the Divine Infinitude 
differentiating Himself into units of individual 
personality, can only be described -as at once 
The Son of God and The Son of Man. If 
we see that the Eternal Life, by reason of its 
non-differentiation in itself, must needs be¬ 
come to each of us exactly what we take it to 
be, then it follows that in order to realize it 
on our own plane of Personality we must see 
it through the medium of Personality, and it is 



2o8 The Law and the Word 

therefore not a theological figment, but the Su¬ 
preme Psychological Truth that no man can 
come to “ the Father ”— that is, to the Parent 
Spirit — except through the Son (John xiv, 
6 ). 

When we see the reason at the back of it, 
the Bible becomes a New Book to us, and we 
learn that the interpretation of it is not to be 
found in learned commentaries, but in our¬ 
selves. Then we find that it is indeed The 
Book of Promises, not vague and uncertain, 
but logical and scientific, teaching us how to 
combine the instrumentality of the Law with 
the freedom of the Word; so that through the 
Perfect Word, manifested as the Perfect Man, 
we reach the Perfect Law, and find that THE 
PERFECT LAW IS THE LAW OF LIB¬ 
ERTY. 


THE END 


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